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AUTHOR: 


URBAN,  WILBUR 


TITLE: 


HISTORY  OF  THE 
PRINCIPLE  ... 

PLACE: 

PRINCETON 

DA  TE : 

1898 


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PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

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Urban,  Wilbur  Marshall,  1873- 

...  The  history  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason:  its 
meta[)hysical  and  logical  formulations.  By  Wilbur  Ur- 
ban ...  *  Princeton,  N.  J.,  The  University  press  [1898] 

cover-title,  88  p.  26"".  (Princeton  contributions  to  philosophy;  ed.  by 
A.  T.  Ormond.    vol.  1.    no.  1) 

Contents  on  end  cover. 

First  issued  as  the  author's  inaug.-diss. — Leipzig,  1897. 


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A  HISTORY 


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•  •  •  • 
,   •  •  •• 

•  •      • 
1     »  •      • 


Principle  of 


Its  Metaphysical  and  Logical 
Formulations 


P.EINC; 


A  DISSERTATION   PRESENTED   TO   THE   PHILOSOPHICAL 

FACULTY  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  LEIPZIG 

TO  SECURE  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR 

OF  PHILOSOPHY 


IJY 


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WILBUR  MARSHALL  URBAN 


1 1 1 


1 897 


•  •  • 


... ... .: :  :   :  -. .-.    CONTENTS. 

•  ••  •1,»  •    •     !  •    •      • 

•  •  •  .  •  •    •     !  •••  ••• 


•    •  • 


...-..•:••:•.  ;:: 


.•  •- 


:•.  .-::.•::  :  chapter  i. 

h^TRin'vcTOB^'i^JiiE  Prohlem  ;    Thk  Dkvi.i.oi'MENT  of  the 
L^'cnCA?;  ?;&i»*4'l>i;sNKss  IN  Connection  with  the  Prin- 

Ctptl^  OF    SUFFICIENT    REASON, 


I'ai.ks. 


1-9 


CHAPTER  II. 


Pre-Leibnitzian  Thinking,   .     . 


.     .     .     9-20 


CHAPTER  111. 

Origin  of  the  Problem:  The  Eeii-nitziaxs;  Metaphysical 

AND  Logical  Motivf:s, 20-31 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Sufficient   Reason    as    the    Basal    Principle    of    Meta- 
physics:  The  Kantians, 3^-5^ 


CHAPTER  V. 

The    Struggle    between    Metaphysical    and 
Motives:   Herbart  and  Trendelenburg,    . 

CHAPTER   VI. 


Logical 
.      .      .    52-67 


Sufficient  Reason  as  the  Basal  Law  of  Logic:  Sigwart, 

Erdmann  and  Wundt 68-84 


CONCLUSION. 


General  Results, 


85-88 


X 


U: 


4 


t_ , 


^> 


5-i 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SUFFICIENT 

REASON:     ITS  METAPHYSICAL  AND 

LOGICAL  FORMULATIONS. 

WILBUR  URBAN,  Ph.D., 
Reader  in  Philosophy,  Princeton   University. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Introductory.— The  Problem. 

The  following  essay  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  attempt  to 
show,  by  means  of  a  historical  study  of  the  development  of 
the  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,  the  standpoint  occupied 
by  the  modern  German  logicians,  as  contrasted  with  the 
Epistemologists  of  the  metaphysical  schools.  As  the  title 
indicates,  the  nature  of  the  principle  has  completely  changed 
in  the  development  of  post-Leibnitzian  thought.  In  its 
origin,  conceived  of  as  extra-logical,  as  metaphysical  and  as 
identified  with  the  causal  axiom,  it  has  finally  been  accorded 
the  place  of  basal  law  of  the  logical  consciousness  and  only 
secondarily  connected  with  the  real  relations  of  causality. 

The  extension  of  the  bounds  of  the  logical  consciousness, 
involved  in  this  transformation,  the  critical  determination  of 
the  relation  of  metaphysical  to  logical  principles  resulting 
from  such  a  development  are  both  phenomena  characteristic 
of  the  modern  ^*  Erkentniss-theoretische  "  logic. 

It  is  the  writer's  notion  that  the  achievement  of  these 
characteristic  standpoints  is  in  great  part  the  result  of  reflec- 
tion upon  the  nature  of  this  Law  of  Ground,  variously  form- 
ulated as  metaphysical  and  logical,  and  that  a  conscientious 
study  of  the  history  of  the  principle  would  throw  much  light 
upon  the  growth  of  our  broader  view  of  logic. 


2? 


262826 


•  -• 


•  •  • 

1     .  •  • 

I   •    •  • 

•  * 


•    «^     •     • 


\ 


/ 


T      ^Au-      fofKnr. the  writer  was  much  charmed  with  the 
ele^"entf  ■  ?;     -S^I  ^^  which  Schopenhauer,  despite 

Ms Tany   metaphysical  ^^"- ^  T'^V^^'Z^cy^ 
thinking  by  following  the  gukl.ng  thread  of  the  spe    he  ) 
far-reaching   problem   of  Sufficient   Reason.     Ana   ^^ 
true  o    Schopenhauer  in    so  great  a  degree,  -ay  be     ad 
with  more  or'less  truth  of  all  the  great  P'^'l^P'^-y;,;'^.^^ 
Leibnitz.     How  should  we  have  so  clear  a  -^-""^  ^^^J   .^ 
chanter  upon  the"  Grundsiitze  der  reuuu  \  erstandcs  bti,rine 
f  he  had'not  gathered  them  all  under  the  o-e  pr.nc.ple  o 
eround?     Wifhout   Herbarfs  "  Methodologie.      ^1"=^ Jias 
fhe  problem  of  ground  and  consequence  as  t  -  -^^obj-t 
Of  his  dialectical  interest,   the    rest  of  the   "Mctaphjsik 
were  scarcely  understandable.  „..,„Uv«;r<i 

The  con,u:n.  rcnan  is  the  great  problem  of  metaph>s  c 
the  connexio  uUarnvt  the  last  question  of  logic  m  '^s  broadest 

1    •      ,  ,  ,.-o,.  Invp  the  mutual  re  ations  ot  the  two 
sense,   and   in   nonav   have  int  muiu.  „f  tuu  h^^^l 

been  so  subtly  elucidated  as  in  the  critical  study  of  this  basal 
principle  of  Sufficient  Reason.  ,       i    :f 

Starting  then  with  these  two  ideas,  on  the  one  hand,  f 
possible,  of  showing  the  fundamental  place  of  the  principle 
under  consideration,  in  the  philosophical  systems  of  the 
more  important  Post-Leibnitzians,  and  secondly  of  discovering 
in  the  development  of  the  law  likewise  the  development  of 
the  modern  concept  of  logic  and  its  problems,  my  study  has 
produced  the  following  essay. 

A  short  preliminary  chapter  upon  the  Pre-Leibnitzians, 
attempts,  to  show  the  conditions  out  oi  which  Leibnitz  s 
quite  original  formulation  of  this  entirely  new  princple 
arose  Leibnitz  is  treated  with  considerable  detail  with  the 
desire  of  showing  that  his  formulation  discloses  the  presence 
of  two  motives,  one  which  tended  to  formulate  the  law  as  a 
logical  principle,  the  other,  the  one  which  finally  predomin- 
ated being  metaphysical,  reduced  the  problems  of  the  grounds 
of  knowledge  to  a  metaphysical  determinism. 

The  succeeding  history  of  the  principle  is  then  conceived 
to  exhibit  three  main  stages : 


>  I    ' 


•••^ 


V\s 


1.  The  metaphysical  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason, 
from  Leibnitz  through  Kant  and  Schopenhauer. 

2.  A   struggle   between   metaphysical   and  logical  atti- 
tudes iu  Herbart  and  Trendelenburg. 

3.   The  logical  formulation  in  the  modern  logicians,  Sig- 

wart,  Wundt,  &c. 

Two  questions  which  may  arise,  why,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  study  is  limited  to  German  thinkers,  and  secondly,  why 
Fichte,    Schelling   and    Hegel  are    omitted,    are    answered 

simply : 

By  the  consideration  of  the  fact  that  the  problem,  as  limit- 
ed by  our  study,  is  exclusively  German,  the  only  extra  Ger- 
man  thinker  who  has  handled  the  technical  problem  of  Suf- 
ficient  Reason  being  the  Kantian,  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton;  and 
secondly,  the  immediate  Post-Kantians,  especially  Hegel, 
represent  no  new  phase  of  the  problem,  but  rather  a  return 
to  the  conditions  against  which  Leibnitz's  formulation  arose 
as  a  protest,  the  pre-critical,  pan-logism  ol  the  Spinozistic 

type. 

The  following  study  is  then  concerned  with  the  interplay 
of  these  two  distinct  motives,  the  logical  and  the  metaphys- 
ical, or  rather  perhaps  with  the  two  ways  of  defining  the 
principle  of  Sufficient  Reason.  This  is  the  basal  law  of 
all  knowledge,  this  Law  of  Ground,  and  according  as  it  is 
conceived  as  extra-logical  and  metaphysical,  or  on  the  other 
hand  as  the  most  general  law  of  logic,  is  our  whole  theory 
of  knowledge  affected. 

The  argument  of  the  succeeding  historical  study  is  briefly 
that  the  origination  and  first  formulation  of  the  principle 
in  Leibnitz's  thinking,  represents  a  stage  of  inconsistency 
in  which  both  motives,  both  attitudes  stand  in  more  or  less 
contradiction,  and  that  the  succeeding  movement  at  first 
manifests  a  decided  trend  toward  the  metaphysical  side,  to 
be  replaced  in  more  modern  thought  by  the  reformation  of 
the  logical  point  of  view,  broadened  and  changed. 

L  Leibnitz's  origination  of  the  principle  of  Sufficient 
Reason  is  found  to  have  arisen  out  of  a  protest  against  the 


genera,  trend  of  previous  thinUing  towar     «  .e  u        n   of 
Lpirica.  causa,  re.tions  -  ^<^^f^^;^2^_  {^^  ,  ,,„. 

'''  'Tt'Z^  e  ^Pir  cal  and  extra-.ogical.  Since  its 
ceived  as    pu.eU    emj  io<rica,  considerations, 

validity  is  not  g''^""^^^ /./f;;'",'  peculiar  metaphysical 
Leibnitz  seeks  to  ground  ^^  ^  ^  ,^!^.^.^,  ,,,,,Htv  of  the 
system  the  ^'-^^ologje      T   e  "k        ,^^  .^ 

monadic  devek>pment  being  th.rou  P^^^^^  ^^.^^^ 

ing,  Sufficient  Reason       .denuhe  ^  ^^^^.^^^  ^_.^^^_ 

thus  ---:f  .^^'^^.^f  :;,f„"^  the  direction  of  a  metaphysi- 
ment,  but  setting  the  current  loo-ical  consequence 

ealformulation  of  the  new  pnnciple.    Th^gl^g'^^^^^  s\    ^e 
of   this  identification  of  causation  ..th  S.  f-''^^[  .^^j 

•     J  .c  -,  nrinciole  of  determination,  just  as  tne  lo^ii- 
':;mT'Leibn  tJ  d  d  no    admit,  but  insisted  that  this  law  was 
norms,  Leibnitz  a  determining  ground.* 

only  one  of  .«#«^«/ rea  »n    "Ste  ^^^    substituting 

At  this   point  Crusms  takes  up    t'^^P  ^istin-uishing 

-  determinateness      tor       sunicicnc> 

besides  .he  ide,!  grounds,  »»/'»-  ,';';f;,„"i    .tcTuts 

ri  .tri'S'  spS  .H"S  ..rces^he  metaphysical  side  o.  .he 
problem  into  the  foreground.' 

Th.  advent  of  the  critical  philosophy    of  Kant,    repre 
The  advent  o    t  f         ^.^^  ^^  ^^^^^^  ^  ^^^^j^^^ 

sents  «^-"f  ^^^'^.f^rphj-sical  treatment  of  S.  R.  He 
tSnTthr^:'  ofTruL\  that  the  law  of  ground  ^  a 
orTndpTe  of  determination  and  not  of  '.sufficiency,  and 
accepts  the  ..determination"  element  in  the  Judgment  of 
'round  an^i  consequence  as  a  necessity  to  be  metaphysically 
Irounded.^      For  the  knowledge  of  this  determniing  ground 

Ltside  of  logic  a  transc.n,.n^al  P^-^P^^/J  .^^^ng tfe 
Other  than  logical  is  then  necessary.'  Though  denying  tne 
possibility  of  an  ontology  of  the  real,  he  proceeds  to  ontolo- 


'cf.  I  19- 

•5  22, 


♦cf.  ?  22. 


»cf.  S  27. 
•cf.  I  32- 
^cf.  I  34. 


1 


5 

gize  this  most  fundamental  of  knowledge  principles.  It  is 
conceived  of  as  «-/r«-logical  and  /r««-scendental.'  Finally 
Schopenhauer  defines  it  as  .«.M-logical  and  as  the  transcen- 
dental knot  of  the  Subject-Object  relation,  which  hkew.se 
marks  its  most  complete  divorce  from  a  logical  point  of  view, 
since  an  Intellectual  Intuition  of  metaphysical  relations  is 
substituted  for  the   logical  thinking  of  ground  and   conse- 

nuance."  .     ,         .      , 

II    What  we  have  been  led  to  call  the  /ogual  motive  for 

Leibnitz's  formulation  of  the  new  law  of  knowledge,  is  ex- 
pressed in  this  great  thinker's  attempt  to  formulate  its  place 
in  relation  to  logical  laws.      As  we  have  seen,  it  was  defined 
as  extra-logical,  in  view  of  the  formal  and  yet  metaphysical 
theory  of  logical  necessity  against  which  the  new  law  arose 
as  a  protest.'     And  vet  this  very  protest  indicated  a  desire 
to  extend   the  narrow  bounds  of  the   logical  consciousness 
beyond  its  formal  limits,  so  as  to  include  all  knowledge  pro- 
cesses     Leibnitz's  most  general  definition  of  S.  R.  is  at  the 
same  time  the   most  general  definition  of    the   logical   con- 
sciousness as  conceived  to-day.*     And  besides  logical  neces- 
sity amon-  ideas  clear  and  distinct  was  conceived  to  be  the 
teleological  goal  of  the  confused  ideas  of  which  S.   R.  was 
developed  as  the  empirical  law.     This  inherent  possibility  m 
the  Leibnitzian  thinking  of   extending  the  concepts  of  logic 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  include  Sufficient  Reason  as  a  basal 
principle  we  shall  call  the  logical  motive. 

In  the  Leibnitzian  school  itself  Wolff  showed  a  tendency, 
in  contrast  to  that  of  Crusius,  to  include  Sufficient  Reason 
as  a  distinct  logical  principle,  side  by  side  with  Identity 
and  Contradiction.  But  his  attempt  to  deduce  S  R.  from 
the  other  two  laws  led  back  to  the  formalism  and  ontolog- 
ical  way  of  looking  at  things  against  which  Leibnitz  had 
protested.'  The  critical  philosophy  of  Kant,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  on  one  side  it  is  but  a  continuation  of  the 
metaphysical   tradition,    nevertheless  represents  a  stage  in 


'  cf.  \  \o. 
'cf.  \  51. 


'cf.    II  20,    21. 


*cf.   \  21. 

^cf.  \  26. 


the  development  of  the   modern  logical   consciousness,  and 
the  corresponding  treatment  of   S.  P.  as   the  basal  law  of 
that  consciousness.^     Although  S.  R.  is  still  identihed  with 
the  causal  axiom,  it  is  with  the  causal  axiom  as  a  knowledge 
principle,   rather  than  an  ontological  princii)le  that  Kant  is 
concerned.      In  fact  the  Law  of  Ground  is  found  only  by  a 
deduction    from    the    logical    categories^   (causation    being 
derived  from  the  hypothetical  judgment.^     It  is  because  of 
this  critical  balance  of  Kant,  which  sees  that  S.  R.  ^^  ^ssen- 
tially  a  relation  of  lo-ical  ground  and  consequence,  although 
it  is  transcendental ;    in  other  words,   because   Kant  remains 
within    his    transcendental   logic,    that    Schopenhauer    hnds 
fault,  and  it   is  for  this  that  he   substitutes  the  doctrine  ot 
Intellectual  Intuition.^ 

From  Herbart  on,  the  logical  motive  makes  itself  strongly 
felt.     The  idea  of  Sufficient  Reason  as  having  for  its  goal  a 
contradictionless  whole  of  experience  and  thought,^  gives  it 
the  place  of  a  universal  logical  principle  to  which  the  formal 
laws  of  Identity  and  Contradiction  are  subordinated,  although 
Herbart  is  not  able   to  formulate   the  law  without  a  meta- 
physical basis.      But  already  in   his  concept  of  the  -widen- 
ed  ground,"  which   should  include   the  whole  nexus  out  of 
which   the   consequence  springs   lies  the  germ   of  a  broader 
view   of  logic. "^     Sufficient   Reason,    the   most  general  term 
for  all    necessary   relations   in  knowledge,    has  as  its   mam 
problem  the  extent  of  its  application  to  the  real,  therefore 
its  relation  to  causality,  but  it  is  not  identihed  with   causa- 
tion.^ 

Through  the  intermediate  stages  of  Trendelenburg  and 

Drobisch,  to  the  former  of  whom,  the  concept  of  logic 
included  the  entire  phenomenology  of  the  judgment,  formal 
and  material  -J  while  the  latter,  though  retaining  the  concept 
of  a  purely  formal  logic,  formulates  Sufficient  Reason  as  the 
basal    law'  of    logic,^   the   modern  logic,   as   represented   by 


\ 


y 


*cf.  'i  41. 

'—  'i  53- 
*H65,  69. 


•^  71. 
•I  79. 


•   I    * 


Wundt,  with  its  recognition  of  S.  R.  as  basal  ^^'^ 
finally  reached.     Sufficient  Reason  is  here  the  general  law 
oHh    ilrdependence  of  all  acts  of  thought,  to  which  the 
no  ma  ive  laws  of  Identity  and  Contradiction  are  subordina- 
ted"    And  t"  question  o'f  its  relation  to  causality  is  now  a 
critical  one_that  of  the  relation  of  the  -usal  axiom    o  the 
Ineral  logical  postulate  of  Grounding.     Sigwart,  Lotze  and 
fvund     ho  V  the  impossibility  of  the  identification  of  causa- 
In  and  Sufficient  Reason,  distinguishing  between  the  deter- 
liLig  ground  as  logical  and  the  empirical  complex  or  cause 
r.n  the  Other  hand  as  only  sufficient.^ 

The     se  of  this  broader  view  of  logic  on  account  of  which 
SufJcient  Reason  was  again  conceived  of  as  purely  a  princi- 
nle  of  knowledge-and  not  a  metaphysical  law  of  the  real  to 
^identified  wfth  causality  was  much  f  ed '.y  ^ew  mot>v 
which    entered   into   German    thought  with    the   adxent  01 
The  Kan    an    -  Kritik."     This  may  be  characterized  as   an 
auempt  to  get  at  the  phenomenology  of  the  grounding  pro- 
cess     Th"^  -  addition  to  the   -Objective  Deduction     of 
Te  concepts  of  the  Understanding,  ^^^^^^^^^^^ 

-^dtiicS^  ri  ht:  f:o-rrre  Jtfz^ 

,  rn.mes  for   the   given    results   in  judgment.     He 

immanental  logical  causaiiiy  r  .; 

''■'"ZTVLZl'SoLL.     This  genetic   point  ol 
;:       : L    irelr tuggested  ,y  the  ^='^f  ™-f  :Scl' 


m  80,  83.  88. 


^U  41.  42. 

♦  §  41  and  42. 


II 


8 

eternal  ideas,  but  could  not  come  to  complete  expression, 
owing  to  the  metaphysical  interpretations  put  upon  it  by 
the  Monadologie.  Merbart,  who  represents  a  stag-e  of  con- 
flict between  the  metaphysical  and  lo<^ical  formulations  of  S. 
R.,  in  his  conception  of  the  logical  ground  so  widened  as  to 
include  elements  not  in  the  conception  as  amenable  to  formal 
logic,  conceives  this  widening  as  brought  about  by  chance 
suggestions,  by  "  Zuflilligen  Ansichten,"  thus  admitting  a 
psychological  element  into  the  process  of  grounding.^  Al- 
though the  logical  causality  thus  suggested  is  reduced  in  his 
system  to  metaphysical  terms,  yet  it  is  important  to  recog- 
nize that  Sufhcicnt  Reason  as  a  principle  of  knowledge  is 
conceived  to  be  an  immanental  necessity  broader  than  the 
necessity  of  formal  loiric. 

Trendelenburg's  tiicory  tliat  logic  should  be  extended  to 
include  the  material,  psychological  as  well  as  the  formal  ele- 
ments in  the  judgment,  brings  the  problem  of  phenomenol- 
ogy to  the  front.  The  modal  categories  of  thought,  possi- 
bility, reality,  and  necessity  are,  after  the  manner  of  Kant's 
"subjective  deduction,"  conceived  as  phenonienological  mo- 
ments in  the  grounding  process,  in  which  the  formal  and 
material  elements  are  united.-  It  is  especially  Trendelen- 
burg, who,  against  the  i)sychological  doctrine  of  '' Zufall  " 
in  the  grounding  processes  develops  his  doctrine  of  the 
teleological  nature  of  all  grounding  processes.'  They  are  a 
**  wahres  Geschehen  "  under  the  law  of  teleological  causality, 
the  goal  of  which  causality  is  Knowledge,  includino-  Thoug-ht 
and  Being.  The  postulate  of  an  immanental  logic,  function- 
ing in  all  judgment  processes,  becomes  a  permanent  element 
in  modern  Logic,  in  Sigwart  and  Erdman.-'  In  Wundt, 
finally,  the  concept  of  a  Logical  Causality  as  the  Law  of 
Ground  in  its  primary  form,  governing  the  higher  appercep- 
tive processes,  is  set  over  against  the  empirical  applications 
of  this  law,  the  Causal  Axiom,  in  its  two  expressions  physi- 
cal and  psychological  causality.     The  teleological  necessity 


\. 


y 


•   « 


•    • 


r  < 


^168. 

'  S  77. 


•^78. 


of  our  thought   processes  is   the   Law   of  Ground  seen   in- 
wardly.^ 

In  conclusion,  we  may  make  our  object  and  method 
clearer  by  comparing  in  a  general  way  the  present  problem 
with  that  which  Konig  sets  himself  to  solve  in  his  extensive 
history  of  the  "Causal  Problem. "^  Here,  by  an  exhaustive 
study,  covering  two  volumes,  and  comprising  a  detailed 
exposition  and  criticism,  the  author  seeks  to  secure  valid 
results  for  the  causal  concept  of  to-day.  This  involves  not 
only  the  complete  metaphysics,  but  explains  the  psychologi- 
cal and  natural  science  standpoints  of  the  authors  under  con- 
sideration. The  present  essay,  on  the  contrary,  aims  only 
to  show  that  there  has  been  a  continuity  in  reflection  upon 
this  more  general  and  more  formal  principle  of  Suflhcient 
Reason ;  that,  in  the  changes  of  attitude  toward  it,  now 
constructing  it  logically  and  again  metaphysically,  and 
secondly  in  the  way  in  which  natural  and  psychological 
causality  have  been  conceived  to  be  related  to  it,  an  instruc- 
tive insight,  not  blurred  by  too  much  data,  may  be  afforded 
into  that  somewhat  difficult  province,  the  border-land 
between  Metaphysics  and  Logic.  In  view  of  this  limitation 
of  the  problem,  the  writer  may  then  hope  to  be  pardoned  for 
what  may  appear  from  another  standpoint  an  insufficient 
treatment  of  very  deep  and  thorough  thinkers. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Pre-Lp:ibnitzian  Thought. 

§  I.  In  order  to  understand  the  origin  of  Sufficient  Reason 
as  a  general  unifying  term,  under  which  the  more  particular 
problems  of  the  Science  of  Knowledge  might  be  put  for- 
ward, as  well  as  to  secure  an  insight  into  the  reasons  for  its 
dominance  of  German  thought  from  Leibnitz  to  the  present 
day,  it  is  necessary  to  sketch  the  general  tendencies  of  pre- 
Leibnitzian  thought. 

^U  91.  92. 

*  Konig,  Edward,  ''  Die  Entwickelung  des  Catisal-Problems'''  Leipzig,  1888. 


10 

There  are  discoverable  tendencies  toward  a  unification  of 
the  problems  of  knowledge,  which,  though  general,  are  yet 
so  evident  as  to  excuse  the  anachronism,  of  referring  for  the 
sake  of  conciseness,  to  expressions  of  Sufficient  Reason 
before  its  actual  formulation  in  Leibnitz. 

Provisionally,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  Greek  thinking 
tended  to  formulate  Sufficient  Reason  in  terms  of  a  naive 
real  logic  of  experience.  Christian  thought,  as  typified  in 
Augustine,  sought  it  in  an  introspective  determination  of  the 
conditions  of  Belief.  The  Reason  of  the  former  was  the 
certainty  of  the  external  Intuition,  corrected  by  a  dialectical 
removal  of  contradictions;  that  of  the  latter  the  satisfac- 
tion and  certainty  of  the  subjective  intuition  of  the  self. 

These  general  norms  being  once  attained,  the  tendency  was 

to  give  them  universal  validity.  Thus,  Aristotle  is  found 
studying  the  movements  of  knowledge  and  of  psychological 
processes  in  general  under  the  same  categories  as  external 
happening.  Augustine,  on  the  contrary,  can  understand  his- 
torical happening  only  as  the  expression  of  the  Divine  Will, 
constructed  on  the  analogy  of  the  experiences  of  his  own 
subjective  willing  self  and  its  necessities. 

§  2.  The  Greek  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason 
reached  its  fullest  expression  in  Aristotle, — his  doctrine  of 
causation,  Lotze  calls  the  first  formulation  of  the  Law  of 
Ground.  But  from  this  doctrine  of  causation  should  not  be 
separated  Aristotle's  applied  logic  and  the  realistic  doctrine 
of  concepts  which  it  involves.  The  two  are  closely  bound 
together  and  their  unity  alone  affords  the  basis  for  a  unitary 
formulation.  The  distinction  between  formal  and  applied 
logic,  in  the  modern  sense,  according  to  which,  as  shall 
appear  later,  Sufficient  Reason  is  defined  as  logical,  its  appli- 
cations being  material,  was  not  yet  made.  The  real  con- 
cept, as  participating  in  the  idea,  lends  itself  equally  well  to 
logical  forms  and  causal  constructions — on  its  ideal  side  to 
logical  formal  relations,  on  its  real  side  to  causal  construc- 
tion. To  formulate  a  general  law,  therefore,  the  whole 
sphere  of  mediate  knowledge,  lying  between  the  intuition  ot 


"V 


y 


^  fc 


II 

perception,  ''which  is  for  us  first"  and  the  intuition  of  the 
ideas,  "which  is  in  itself  first"  to  use  Aristotle's  terms,  all 
lying  between  these  two  extremes  of  the  immediately  certain, 
requires  sufficient  grounds  for  its  certainty.^  These  grounds 
may  be  determined  either  by  the  laws  of  logic,  as  developed 
by  Aristotle,  or  by  his  fourfold  doctrine  of  causation.  The 
important  point  is  that  in  either  case  the  concepts  dealt 
with  are  real,  as  well  as  rational,  and  the  conclusions  either 
of  the  principles  of  logic  or  of  the  laws  of  causation  are  un- 
questioned constructions  of  the  real.  No  deep-rooted  dis- 
tinction is  made  between  the  logical  and  the  causal  side  of 
thought,  because  the  deeper  distinctions  of  the  subjective 
and  objective  had  not  arisen.  The  lack  of  this  distinction 
between  formal  logical  thought  and  concrete  real  thought  is 
characteristic  of  a  unitary  metaphysical  point  of  view. 
It  is  the  naive  rationalism  which,  though  it  may  distinguish 
between   ideal  and   real  grounds,  makes  no  essential  break 

between  them. 

g  3.  From  the  very  beginning  of  Greek  thought  this  naively 
rationalistic  attitude  toward  reality  was  marked.  All 
attempts  to  solve  the  problems  of  Being  and,  especially,  of 
Becoming,  which  arose  to  challenge  this  attitude,  were  charac- 
terized by  the  use  of  concepts  which  contained  already  the 
presupposition  of  their  reality.  The  voik  of  Anaxagoras,  the 
logical  principles  of  Zeno,  Identity  and  Contradiction,  the 
number  system  of  the  Pythagoreans  were  not  handled  as 
principles  of  knowledge  but  as  directly  analysed  out  of  reality. 
And  when  Plato  became  convinced  of  the  dualism  between 
the  material  and  ideal  world,  the  essential  rationalism  of 
Greek  thought  prevented  him  from  taking  the  step  which 
would  to  modern  thought  necessarily  follow,  of  distinguish- 
ing between  real  cause  and  ideal  ground.  The  ideas  are 
made  the  causes  of  material  things  and  are  called  causes,' 
and  even  force  is  ascribed  to  them  by  means  of  which  they 
are  able  to  work  upon  us  and  make  themselves  known. ^ 

^Aua/vf.  Post.     7,  P-  100.  b.  13.  '  ^^^^"^  95,  E. 

»  In  the  Phaedrus,  where  Plato's  doctrine  of  Ideas  first  appears,  it  is  confined   to 

moral  ideas. 


12 

This  brings  with  it  a  complete  confusion  of  ideal  and  real 
grounds.'  The  ideas  are  both  causes  and  grounds  for  the 
knowledge  of  the  real  of  perception,  of  which,  without  the 
mediation  of  the  ideas,  there  is  no  knowledge  but  only  belief.'^ 

For  the  knowledge  of  this  world  of  appearance  the  ideas 
must  be  taken  into  service.  But  they  in  turn  can  only  be 
known  in  an  intuition  out  of  time. 

^4.    In  Aristotle  there  is  no  material  change  in  the  general 
conception  of  the  essential  sameness  of  logical  ground  and 
real  cause.     As  we  have  seen,  the  validity  of  the  causal  and 
logical  laws  alike  rests  upon  the   reality  of  the  general  con- 
cept.     Thus  Schopenhauer  has  gathered  together  in  his  his- 
torical sketch   numerous  (piotations  in    which  a  logical  pre- 
mise  is   called    cause,    ahtov    being   used    for   every    sort    uf 
ground.^     Logical   thoughts   as   well  as   psychoh)gical    phe- 
nomenaare  looked  upon  as  a  real  happening  subject  to  the 
same  construction  as  other  external  movements.      One   dif- 
ference may  be  distinguished  however.     The  ideas  as  pure 
form,  in  Plato's  sense,  are  no  longer  looked  upon  as  causes 
either  of  perception  or  of  natural  phenomena,  but  Aristotle 
has  reached  a  critical  standpoint  from  which  he  is  able  to  see 
that  only  the  general  concept,  as  containing  ideal  and  real 
elements  in   union,    may   be  conceived  of   causally.*      Thus 
instead   of   Plato's   simple  ideal   causation  arises  Aristotle's 
more   complex   doctrine   of    a   fourfold   causation,    of  which 
moving  and   end  causes  are  the  more  important.      The  idea 
is  cause  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  natural  force  and  teleological 
end.      But  although    both    moving   and  end  cause,  are  con- 
sidered  principles   of   Sufficient   Reason    of    Becoming,   the 
stress  is  put  upon  the  teleological  side.     The  cause  is  poten- 

»  This  confusion  is  characteristic  of  a  stage  where  the  postulate  of  ground  is  not 

yet  recognized,  formulated  as  a  basal  principle  of  thought,  but  only  acts  unconscious  of 

itself.     So  all  the  formulations  of  Plato  appear  to  us,  as  Schopenhauer  says—"  wie  der 

Stand  der   Unschuld  gegen   den  der  Erkentniss  des  Guten  und  Bosen."      Viivfache 

Wurzel. — p.  19— cf.  also  Philebus  p.  240. 

"^X^^Xwxzs—Psyiholo^iedcsErkeunens,  Leipzig,  1893.     An  hang.   Par.  7. 

•  "  Vierfache  IVurztl  dts  Zurcichendcn  Grundes."     ^  56. 

*  Sigwart,  Logik  I,  page  394. 


\. 


/ 


13 

tentiality  of  the  effect,  because  the  idea  of  the  effect  is  con- 
sidered to  be  already  in  the  cause.  In  order,  therefore, 
that  a  present  real  might  be  seen  to  be  the  outcome  of  pre- 
ceding real  conditions,  into  these  conditions  was  read  an 
idea  which  rationally  could  be  seen  to  be  the  dunamis  of  the 

present  state. ^ 

§5.  If  for  the  sake  of  clearness  we  follow  the  use  of  a 
biological  analogy,  we  may  call  attention  to  the  extremely 
undifferentiated  state  of  this  life-principle  of  thought— this 
fundamental  motive  of  Sufficient  Reason.  In  the  absence  of 
a  sense  of  the  difference  even  between  the  necessities  of 
thought  and  reality,  it  is  still  less  to  be  expected  that  we 
shall  find  a  strong  sense  of  the  difference  between  the 
necessities  in  different  spheres  of  reality— or  between  sub- 
jective sufficiency  and  objective  necessity.  In  fact,  these 
differentiations,  in  thought  as  in  material  development, 
appear  only  as  the  result  of  tedious  processes.  To  the 
first  of  these  differentiations,  the  source  of  the  distinction 
between  subjective  and  objective  necessity,  our  attention 
must  now  be  turned. 

§  6.  In  addition  to  the  naive  rationalism  of  Greek  thinking, 
a  second  ingredient  found  its  way  into  modern  philosophy,  a 
force  which,  though  less  obtrusive,  is  perhaps  equally  to  be 
reckoned  with — namely,  the  subjective  psychological  doc- 
trine of  belief  of  Mediaeval  thought,  as  formulated  in 
Augustine.  This,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  sought 
the  grounds  of  real  judgments  in  an  introspective  determi- 
nation  of  the  subjective  conditions  of  belief.  And  the  norm, 
according  to  which  external  realities  are  judged,  is  the 
certainty  of  the  subjective  intuition  of  the  self.  Belief, 
which  according  to  Plato  and  Aristotle  lay  outside  the 
sphere  of  knowledge, ^  becomes  the  very  presupposition  of 
knowledge.  Credo  ut  intelligam  is  by  no  means  merely  a 
theological  axiom,  but  locates  the  problem  of  the  grounds  of 

*  Ueberweg  und  Hdinze,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  7th  Edition,  Vol.  I.  page  203. 
Aristotle  Anal.  Post,  87,  b,  31. 
«Cf.  I  3. 


knowledge  in  the  subjective  assent  which  accompanies  all* 
judgment.* 

§7.  This  subjective  assent  or  belief,  which  is  evidently  in 
the  first  place  psychological,  is,  however,  conceived  by 
Augustine  to  be  grounded.  It  is  with  the  nature  of  this 
grounded  sufficiency  that  we  arc  alone  concerned.  That 
something  appears  in  consciousness  is  certain.  Our  doubt 
can  only  extend  to  the  nature  of  that  something.^ 

Now,  that  Avhich  is  given  to  us  most  certainly  and  really 
is  the  consciousness  of  self,  not  as  a  nutaplivsical  substance, 
but  as  a  willing,  believing,  doubting  self — even  the  last  cle- 
ment of  doubt  making  the  certainty  of  the  self  ])resence  more 
absolute,  as  Descartes  likewise  argued.  Tlic  self  is  the 
source  of  all  assent — and  the  certainty  of  the  self  the  norm 
of  the  certainty  in  our  assent  to  other  realities.'*  Thus  he 
argues;  reality  must  be  discovered  within  us  to  be  after- 
ward extended  to  the  external  world — for  that  to  which  we 
give  our  subjective  assent  of  the  will  is,  as  Augustine  with 
insight  expresses  it,  "our  life."  ''That  which  later  ripens 
into  knowledge  must  first  be  grasped  by  faith;  who  disdains 
faith  will  never  be  able  to  raise  himself  to  knowledge."* 
Self-certainty  is  then  the  norm  according  to  which  assent  is 
given  to  the  reality  of  the  elements  that  enter  consciousness. 

§8.  But  the  important  question  arises  how  may  this  sub- 
jective certainty,  arising  out  of  the  assent  of  the  will,  which 
Augustine  believes  to  be  prior  to  our  extension  of  knowl- 
edge to  the  external  world,  be  conceived  to  be  valid  also  for 
external  reality.  At  this  point  the  Will  Metaphysics  of 
Augustine  enters,  together  with  his  Theism.  The  Will  of 
God,  as  ground  of  the  world,  made  after  the  pattern  of  the 
Eternal  Ideas  (a  neoplatonic  element  in  his  system),  is  the 
source  of  our  will,  as  part  of  the  world,  and  therefore  works 

^*^  De  Fraedestinatione" — sec.  C,  2 — "  Ipsum  credere  nihil  aliud  ist  quam  cum 
assensione  cogitare.  Non  enim  omnis  qui  cogitat,  credit,  cum  ideo  cogitent  plerique ; 
ne  credant ;  sed  cogitat  omnis,  qui  credit  et  credendo,  cogitat  et  cogitando  credit." 

^''Contra  Academ,''  III,  c,  il. 

*''De  beata  Vita;'  7,  11. 

*••  Tract.;'  36  in  Ev.  Joh.  n,  7. 


\ 


y 


15 

upon  the  finite  will,  determining  our  subjective  assent  or 
disbelief.  Thus  is  our  belief  in  the  truths  of  the  external 
world  a  direct  function  of  our  subjective  assent.  And  for 
Augustine  there  is  really  no  causality  except  that  deducible,. 
theologically,  from  the  nature  of  the  Will  of  God,  and  no 
knowledge  except  that  vouchsafed  to  our  subjective  belief. 

§  9.  The  reason  for  our  treatment  of  the  Augustinian  doc- 
trine of  assent,  is  that  it  is  a  typical  expression  ot  an  important 
element  of  subjective  grounding,  taken  up  into  later  philoso- 
phy, especially  the  Cartesian.  It  expresses,  too,  the  exactly 
opposite  standpoint  from  the  Aristotelian,  in  that  while  the 
reality  of  the  general  concept  is  in  the  former  taken  for 
granted,  here  concrete  subjective  reality  is  the  starting 
point.  They  are  alike  in  this,  however,  that  as  in  the  former 
the  grounds  of  logical  knowledge  and  causes  in  reality  are 
not  distinguished,  because  the  reality  of  the  general  con- 
cepts is  the  basis  of  both,  so  also  in  Augustine  the  grounds 
of  truth  as  discovered  in  assent,  just  as  the  grounds  of  ex- 
ternal reality,  are  in  both  cases  ultimately  to  be  found  in  the 

will  of  God. 

Thus  reconstructing  Augustine's  theory  of  Sufficient 
Reason  in  modern  terms,  it  might  be  said  that  to  him,  what- 
ever satisfies  the  demands  of  the  Will  for  the  real,  and  is 
taken  up  by  the  transcendental  belief,  without  which  the 
inner  life  is  impossible,  is  true.  Whatsoever  can  be  shown 
to  be  grounded  in  the  Will  of  God  is  real.  In  both  cases 
the  grounds  are  ultimately  the  same. 

§  10.  This  Formulation  of  Ratio  Sufficiens  is,  at  bottom, 
the  expression  of  the  whole  mediaeval  intuition  of  the  world. 
As  Dilthey  expresses  it  ''Weiter  als  Augustinus  hat  kein 
mittelalterlicher  Mensch  gesehen."  What  followed  was  but 
an  impossible  attempt  to  graft  the  Aristotelian  rational- 
ism of  concepts  upon  this  Will  metaphysic— but  it  remained 
ahvays  **  fremdes  Gut." 

The  Realists  sought  to  find  concepts  which  by  their  very 
definition  would  include  their  reality,  concepts  which  thus 
by    the    mere    application    of    the    Aristotelian    syllogism, 


i6 

would  build  a  whole  system  of  objective  truth ;  but  these 
very  concepts  of  the  relig^ious  consciousness  were  in  reality 
but  products  of  the  relii^ious  belief  that  Augustine  had 
grounded,  and  were  capable  of  no  more  scientific  proof. 
This  tendency  reached  its  culmination  in  the  famous  Ansel- 
mian  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  Against  this  movement 
appeared,  from  time  to  time,  the  Nominalists,  who  by  means 
of  the  weapons  of  scepticism,  sought  to  retain  the  doc- 
trines of  belief  grounded  on  the  old  Augustinian  Will  meta- 
physic.  The  final  conflict  was  fought  out  between  Duns 
Scotus  and  St.  Thomas, — of  whom  the  former  was  Augus- 
tinian and  the  latter  Aristotelian.  But  already  in  the  13th 
century  men  had  begun  to  speak  of  a  "  Two  Fold  Truth,"  for 
which  there  should  be  two  entirely  different  instruments  of 
investigation,  one  for  theology  and  another  for  secular 
sciences.  Thus  began  to  arise  among  the  scientists  a  mechan- 
ical doctrine  of  causation,  which  later  in  modern  philosophy 
should  supply  the  Ratio  Sufficieiis  of  Becoming,  of  existendi, 
which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  failed  entirely  in  the  thinking 
of  Augustine. 

§  II.  Descartes'  theory  of  grounding  represents,  as  has 
already  been  suggested,  a  union  of  the  Aristotelian  and 
Augustinian  standpoints,  a  union  which  from  the  point  of 
view  of  clear  critical  thought,  it  must  be  admitted,  brought 
only  confusion.  Although  to  modern  critical  insight,  they 
both,  Aristotle  and  Augustine,  represent  extremes  of  objective 
and  subjective  treatment  of  the  problems  of  knowledge,  yet 
each  is  thoroughly  consistent.  With  the  former  logical 
forms  and  causal  relations  are  equally  of  the  warp  and  woof 
of  objective  reality,  a  premise  is  the  cause  of  a  conclusion 
and  from  a  given  result  the  necessary  cause  is  thought,  not 
discovered.  Augustine,  on  the  contrary,  with  a  subjectivity 
as  naive  as  Aristotle's  objectivity,  reduces  knowledge  to 
belief  or  assent  which  is  a  function  of  the  ethical  will,  but 
not  content  with  finding  the  grounds  of  knowledge  in  the 
subjective  will,  finds  it  impossible  to  construe  objective  cau- 
sation otherwise  than  as  a  function  of  the  divine  will,     Conse- 


\ 


J 


17 

quently    all    causes    with    Augustine    are    at   bottom    moral 
causes,  as  witness  his  doctrine  of  history. 

§12.     The  union  of  these   two  standpoints  in  the  Car- 
tesian thinking  may  be  expressed  as  follows; 

1.  Objective  Causation  is  reducible  to  logical  gromiding — 
for  causation  is  the  term  for  the  interaction  of  substances  and 
their  attributes,  and  the  relation  of  substance  and  attribute 
is  logical.  This  depends  upon  the  Aristotelian  and  Scholas- 
tic theory  of  the  real  nature  of  the  general  concepts  called 
metaphysical  substances. 

2.  But  the  reality  of  these  general  concepts,  upon  which 
logical  grounding  and,  consequently,  objective  causation 
rests,  is  in  turn  subject  to  a  psychological  grounding,  after 
the  Augustinian  fashion. 

For  Descartes  starts  his  reflection  from  the  very  same 
point  of  certainty  of  the  self-intuition,  as  the  outcome  of 
doubt,  which  characterized  x\ugustine's  thought.  From 
the  absolute  doubt,  with  which  the  ''Meditations"  begin, 
Descartes  is  led  back  to  certainty  of  the  self — but  not  by  a 
reference  to  higher  logical  criteria  as  in  the  process  of 
knowledge.  ''Cogito  ergo  sum,''  if  of  the  nature  of  a  logical 
syllogism  is  ?ipetitio principii  of  a  logical  law  not  yet  grounded, 
but  if  of  the  nature  of  an  intuition  (which  is  undoubtedly  the 
right  interpretation)  has  simply  the  character  of  subjective 
belief.  Descartes  now  makes  use  of  the  self-intuition  in  a 
way  entirely  unwarranted,  for  this  subjective  belief  is  made 
the  criterion  of  logical  clearness  and  distinctness.  Every- 
thing that  comes  to  consciousness,  si  clairissemejit  et  si distincte- 
ment,  as  the  self-intuition  is  valid,  says  Descartes,  ignoring 
the  difference  between  the  clearness  and  distinctness  of  the 
self-intuition  and  of  logical  and  real  relations,  and  failing  to 
see  that  the  criteria  of  the  latter  can  only  be  logical  and  real 
relations  themselves. 

This  mode  of  procedure,  when  put  in  practice  by  Des- 
cartes, discloses  a  series  of  real  ideas,  which  become  the 
last  grounds  of  knowledge  and  of  the  real.  In  addition  to 
the  idea  of  the  self  or  res  cogitans  as  the  ground  of  all  phe- 


i8 

nomena  of  consciousness,  we  intuit  the  idea  of  a  res  extensa,. 
or  objective  substance  with  equal  necessity,  and  as  equally 
real,  and  as  the  ground  of  both  the  'Mnost  real"  idea  of  God. 

Thus  is  developed  Descartes'  doctrine  of  a  hierarchy  of 
real  concepts,  as  far  as  a  theory  of  objective  orrounding  is  con- 
cerned, Aristotelian,  but  itself  ultimately  grounded  in  the 
subjective  belief  of  Augustine. 

§13.  The  consequence  of  this  for  his  doctrine  of  Causa- 
tion is  important.  "  The  most  perfect  knowledge,"  says 
Descartes,  *'is  the  knowledge  ot  results  out  of  their  causes. 
The  highest  point  of  philosophy  is  therefore  to  explain  things 
on  the  ground  of  the  knowledge  of  God  as  their  creator.'* 
This  last  sentence  is  the  logical  consequence  of  a  position 
which  he  himself  carefully  defines  in  his  argument  against 
Gassendi.'  In  the  cause  all  the  reality  of  the  result  either 
formally  or  immanently  (/.  r.,  either  the  same  realities  or 
others  that  are  more  perfect)  must  be  contained,  for  there 
can  be  in  the  result  no  more  reality  than  in  the  cause."  All 
causal  relations,  then,  are  reducible  to  logical  relations  among 
the  viodi  of  these  most  real  substances.  For  because  of  the 
substantiality  of  these  most  real  ideas,  their  logical  relations 
must  equal  real  relations.  Thus  both  the  Aristotelian  and 
Aug-ustinian  elements  in  Descartes  lend  themselves  to  a 
theory  which  excludes  empirical  causality  as  such,  and  the 
concept  of  causation  is  reduced  to  that  of  logical  grounding. 

§14.  And  since  in  the  actual  application  of  this  logical 
causal  principle  the  last  criterion  must  be  the  clearness  and 
distinctness  of  subjective  certainty,  the  Sufficient  Reason  of 
Knowledge  is  in  the  last  analysis  subjective.  And  now 
enters  the  peculiar  element  of  the  system.  As  the  meta- 
physical ground  of  this  subjective  certainty,  God  the  abso- 
lutely real  and  veracious,  is  conceived  to  be  the  final  war- 
rant and  Sufficient  Reason  of  its  truth.  The  concept  of 
God,  however,  was  itself  only  discovered  as  most  real 
through  this  subjective  certainty  and  belief.  The  ontologi- 
cal   proof   of  the  divine    existence    is    but    the    clothing    of 

'  ^^ Meditation es  in  Prima  Philosophia"  III. 


V 


y 


SJJ 


19 

a  religious  postulate  in  false  logical  forms.  Between  the 
objective  logical  and  causal  world,  the  world  of  mediate 
grounding,  and  the  world  of  subjective  assent  or  belief, 
exists  a  chasm  in  the  Cartesian  thought  which  has  not  been 
bridged,  and  which  constitutes  what  has  already  been 
described  as  an  unassimilated  union  of  the  objectivity  of 
Aristotle  with  the  subjectivity  of  Augustine.  Not  only  is 
real  causal  happening  reduced  to  logical  grounding,  but  the 
latter  in  turn  to  subjective  sufficiency. 

^15.  This  break,  then,  in  the  very  middle  of  the  Car- 
tesian Theory  of  Knowledge,  shows  the  problem  before 
modern  philosophy,  to  be  that  of  the  relation  of  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  sides  of  Sufficient  Reason,  of  knowl- 
edge and  real  ground.  As  we  shall  see,  it  had  its  first 
definite  answer  in  Kant,  though  by  no  means  a  final  one. 

We  may,  in  the  second  place,  see  in  this  contradiction 
between  psychology  and  logic,  the  germs  of  the  two  dis- 
tinctly opposite  movements  that  followed :  The  rationalis- 
tic doctrine  of  mediated  erround  is  carried  out  into  a  com- 
plete  identification  of  eausa  and  ratio  by  Spinoza,  with  an 
absolute  neglect  of  the  subjective  side. 

§  16.  On  the  other  hand,  the  intermediate  sphere  of  logical 
causation  appears  to  Malebranche  an  unassimilated  term,  and 
the  subjective  satisfaction  is  brought  into  immediate  rela- 
tion with  the  objective  Will  of  God,  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
intermediate  sphere  of  phenomenal  ground  and  consequence. 
The  phenomena  are  simply  occasional  causes  by  means  of 
which  God  satisfies  the  desires  of  the  subject.  Thus,  he  says 
poetically,  *' Every  idea  of  the  human  consciousness  is  a 
prayer  of  the  will  which  God  satisfies  with  its  consequence." 
On  the  other  hand,  every  idea  in  my  consciousness  is  the 
immediate  product  of  the  Will  of  God.  W^e  need  only 
remark  that  this,  in  its  essence,  is  but  the  '^  Willens  i\nsch- 
auung"  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  that  the  possibility  of  such 
a  return  (logically)  from  Descartes  shows  how  imperfect  was 
his  break  from  a  purely  religious  intuition  of  the  World. 


20 

gi;.    The   sccoiul   inovemcnt   of   Spino/a    is,  however,  an 
absolute  break,  in  that  it  is  built  upon  the  rationalistic  oerm 
in  Descartes,  which  was  the  Classical   element  in   Christian 
thinking,  the  one   unassimilated   element   in   its   World-intu- 
ition.     With  him   the  confusion  of  cdz/sa  and    ^uin'o  was  com- 
plete.     Because  the  form  of  the  oiitoloo;ical    proof   is   logical 
and,  thus,  of  the  nature  of  the  principle  of  mediate  grounding 
as  developed  by  Descartes,  he  extends  the  form  of  vSutbcient 
Reason   between    j.henomena    and    the   objective   thing  in  it- 
self   without    any   question    whatever,    neglecting    the    sub- 
jective postulate  element  in   the   Ontological    Proof.      Thus 
Spinoza's  Pantheism  and  determinism  become,  properly,  only 
the    realization    of   Descartes'    Ontological    Pn^of,    and   that 
which  Descartes  took,  ideal  and  subjective  as  the  ground  of 
knoivledgc  for  the  existence  of  God,  (reciuiring  a  correspond- 
ing- real  cause)  wa<,  for  S])iii()/a,  real.      The  concept  of  God 
not  only  must  have  its  real  counterpart,  but   it  is  God   him- 
self.    The   whole  of  philoso|)hy  is  thus  a  logical   relation  of 
concepts — and  j^either  the  problem  of  a  real  object  to  which 
they  correspond  or  a  subject   to   whom   they  are   sufficient 
truth,  is  at  all  in  question. 

Schopenhauer's  study  and  criticism  of  Spinoza  is  a  com- 
plete exposition  of  this  confusion,  and  in  default  of  space  for 
further  study,  we  must  refer  to  him.'  For  us  only  the  main 
outlines  are  of  importance. 

CHAl^TER   HI. 

Origin  of  the  Prixc  itlh — The   Li:ii:m  izians. 

gi8.  The  outcome  of  the  entire  preceding  trend  of  thought 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  to  reduce  the  problem  of  causation  to 
one  of  logical  grounding.  That  grounding,  being  metaphysi- 
cally conceived,  involved  an  identification  of  the  ideal  ground 
of  knowledge  with  the  material  relations  of  cause  and  effect. 
This  essential  lack  of  distinction  between  logical  and  real 
grounds,  arose  from  the  Aristotelian  doctrine  that  real  con- 

"^''Vierfache  Wurzel,''  Par.  8. 


\ 


y 


21 

cepts  are  alike  the  data  of  logic  and  causal  judgments;  it 
was  strengthened  by  Augustine's  theory  of  a  hierarchy  of 
subjective  certainties  or  reals,  in  which  real  and  ideal  terms 
are  contained  without  distinction  and  reached  its  fullest  ex- 
pression in  Descartes  and  wSpinoza  in  an  absolute  confusion 
of  the  nature  of  logical  and  real  relations. 

J^  19.  Leibnitz's  thinking,  then,  in  so  far  as  the  postulate  of 
Sufjfjcii'ht  Reason  and  its  origin,  are  concerned,  arose  as  a 
protest  against  this  reduction  of  causalty  to  logical  ground- 
ing. But  it  is  against  logical  grounding  hypostatized  to  onto- 
loirical  validitv,  rather  than  au^ainst  the  essentially  logical 
nature  of  the  grounding  process  that  he  protests.  As  has 
been  pointed  out  in  the  introduction,  there  is  still  consider- 
able discussion  concerning  the  interpretation  to  be  given  to 
this  original  i)rinciple  of  Leibnitz.  He  himself  defined  it  as 
applying  distinctly  to  empirical  truth,  to  vdrites  de  fait,  in 
contrast  to  the  vhith  eternith,  concerning  which  he  believed 
logical  deduction  gave  complete  and  absolute  truth.  To 
appreciate  the  place  of  Sufficient  Reason  in  his  theory  of 
knowledge,  it  is  important  to  understand  the  full  force  of  this 
distinction.  Without  going  fully  into  the  metaphysics  of 
the  Monad,  it  will  suffice  for  our  understanding  of  his  theory 
of  knowdedsre  to  call  attention  to  his  doctrine  of  the  Monad 
as  a  self-determining  developing  real,  in  which  the  present 
state  is  always  the  presupposition  and  ground  of  each  suc- 
ceeding state  so  that  one  knowing  the  entire  present  of  the 
Monad  could  tell  its  past  and  future.  Since,  however,  the 
inner  happenings  in  the  Monad  form  the  basis  of  all  external 
empirical  happenings  whatsoever  it  follows  that  a  dynamic 
law  of  monadic  development,  must  in  some  sense  or  under 
some  different  aspect,  become  a  law  of  empirical  happening. 
The  determination  of  the  first  sphere  must  be  ground  of  the 
determination  in  the  second.  Now^  the  self  conscious  Monad 
is  the  one  in  wdiich  the  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  manifests 
itself  as  a  law  of  knowledge,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact  in  the 
form  of  a  postulate  or  demand  growing  out  of  the  very 
nature  of  this  determination.     This  demand,  as  expressed  in 


!>'? 


V 


the  '^  Principia  Philosophiar  that  all  acts  of  knowledii^e  shall 
have  sufficient  j^rounds,  that  is,  in  terms  of  the  ♦*  Monado- 
logie,"  that  every  state  of  the  self  conscious  Monad  must 
be  determined,  is  further  expanded  to  read,  *' no  fact  can 
be  considered  true,  no  judi^ment  held  as  true,  if  a  satis- 
factory ground  can  not  be  found,  on  account  ot  which  it  is 
thus  and  not  otherwise,  althou,i;h  these  uTounds  are  often 
unknown  to  us."     (Also  Fifth  Letter  to  Clarke  1^125.)* 

Jf20.  Thus  worded,  the  j)rincijile  is  undoubtedly  loi^ical, 
that  is  loo^ical  m  the  broad  sense  that  it  is  a  universal  postu- 
late or  principle  of  all  knowledixe.  As  such  it  must  be  con- 
ceived equally  as  the  i^eneral  law  <^n)vernini^  judgments 
concerning  the  vcritcs  ctcrnitcs  and  judgments  regarding  the 
vc'ritcs  dc  fait.  And  this  seems  to  be  the  onlv  j)ossible  con- 
clusion in  regard  to  a  principle  stated  so  broadly  and  gen- 
erally as  the  Leibnitzian  Law.  If  Sufficient  Reason  de- 
mands simply  that  every  judgment  should  have  a  reason 
sufficient  to  explain  why  it  is  so  and  not  otherwise,  this 
should  also  include  t!ie  judgments  of  formal  U)gic,  as  well  as 
mere  judgments  of  empirical  fact.  It  was  a  logical  motive 
in  the  truest  sense  which  led  to  the  formulation  of  such  a 
general  law  of  all  knowledge.  Why  then  did  Leibnitz  place 
it  side  by  side  with  the  logical  j)rinciples  of  Identity  and 
Contradiction — as  tar  as  validity  is  concerned,  but  conhne  it 
as  a  material  principle  to  matters  ot  fact,  to  vcn'tcs  de  fait .' 

^21.  The  answer  to  this  (piestion  is  sim[)le.  Side  by  side 
M'ith  the  logical  motive  which  led  to  the  tormulation  of  such 
a  general  |)rinciple  of  knowledge,  psychological  and  meta- 
physical motives  equally  strong  arose  which  prevented  a 
complete  and  consistent  exi)ression  of  the  logical  principle. 

L  The  distinction  between  the  eternal  and  empirical 
truths,  inherited  frcun  Descartes,  rests  upcMi  a  psychological 
distinction  between  clear  and  confused  ideas,  which  Leib- 
nitz connects  very  closely  with  his  doctrine  of  the  Monad. 
Now  it  is  just  with   the  sphere  of  the  **  confused  ideas,"  in- 

*  "  Ce  principe  est  celui  du  besoin  d'unc  raisr)n  suHisante,  pour  qu'une  chose 
existe,  qu'un  cvcment  arrive  qu'une  vcriiti  ait  lieu." 


J 


23 

.eluding  the  cases  (mentioned  by  Leibnitz   in  the  formulation 
already  given)  where  the  grounds  are  not  known  at  all,  that 
the  new  law  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  to  be  concerned.     Here 
the  formal  logical  laws  do  not  hold,  because  a  ground  cannot 
be   such    logically   if   it  is   not   known,   or    even    not    clear. 
Leibnitz  had  in  mind,  then,  a  principle  which  shall  supplant 
the   laws  of  Identity  and   Contradiction  in  a  psychological 
sphere    where   these   do   not   hold.     It  is  clear,   then,   why 
Leibnitz  places  the  law  of  Sufficient  Reason  side  by  side  with 
those  of  formal  logic,  without  giving  the  former  the  place  of 
a  logical  principle.      It  is  in  his  system  of  knowledge  prin- 
ciples, extra-logical,  but  merely  because  the  concept  of  logic 
is   narrowed  to   its  formal   side.      It  is  to  include  just  those 
unclear  confused  elements  of  our  knowledge  which  are  not 
amenable   to   formal   logical   principles,    but  which   are  not- 
withstanding, subject  to  law.      A  new  light  is  thrown  upon 
the    problem    when    we    consider   that   the    dynamic  of  the 
Monad   consists   in  the   raising   into   clear  apperceptive  con- 
sciousness of  relation  just  th^  petites  perceptions,  the  confused 
ideas  for  which  Sufficient  Reason  is  the  law.     And  the  goal 
of  this  development   is  logical  clearness  and  distinctness,  so 
that  a  continuous  movement  from   the  psychological  to  the 
logical  consciousness  is  the  ideal  of  knowledge.     There  is  no 
do\d)t  that  Leibnitz  himself  grasped  the  profound  import  of 
this  idea  of  a  teleology  in  the  very  heart  of  knowledge  pro- 
cesses, but  he  failed  to  draw  the  necessary  conclusion  that  the 
whole  process  must  be  conceived  as  logical,  and  the  concept 
of  logic  extended  to  include  it  all.    He  came  near  to  the  idea  of 
Ideological  movement  in  the  apperceptive  processes,  which 
might  be  seen  to  be  the  very  heart  of  Sufficient  Reason— and 
,thus  to  the  idea  of  a  logical  causality  in  apperception,  later 
developed  by  Wundt,  but  he  remained  bound  to  narrow  views 
of  the  logical  consciousness,  which  excluded  this  profound 

insight. 

§22.  II.  Failing,  thus,  because  of  a  metaphysical  psy- 
chology to  extend  Sufficient  Reason  to  the  whole  knowledge 
process,  formal  logical  and   sub-logical,  and  thus  to  achieve 


24 

an  early  definition  of  the  loirical  consciousness,  which  has  in 
later  times  become  so  important,  he  falls  back  upon  his  meta- 
physics of  the  Monad,  and  formuhites  Sufficient  Reason  as 
a  metaphysical  extra-logical  principle.  It  is  identified  with 
causality.  This  metaphysical  identification  of  Sufficient 
Reason  with  the  causal  axiom  marks  an  important  point  in 
the  deyelopmcnt  of  thoui^ht.  On  the  one  hand,  in  that  the 
ne\y  law,  and  therefore  the  causal  axiom,  are  conceived  as 
extra-logical,  a  bar  is  set  to  that  logical  ontologism  of  Spinoza 
which  reduced  causal  necessity  to  logical  grounding.  On 
the  other  hand,  this  same  interpretation  of  the  law  as  extra- 
logical  demands  a  new  metaphysical  grounding  of  the  causal 
axiom,  which  should  show^  Sufficient  Reason  to  be  a  prin- 
ciple of  determination  of  the  real,  as  formal  logic  is  of  mere 
concepts.  This  demand  Leibnitz  did  not  fully  recognize, 
but  conceiyed  his  princi|)le  as  one  of  "sufficiency"  rather 
than  "determination."  With  the  criticism  of  Crusius  and 
Kant  upon  the  term  "sufficient  reason,"  and  their  substi- 
tution therefore  of  the  idea  of  "determining  ground,"  the 
metaphysical  motiye  in  force  in  Leibnitz's  thought  found  its 
logical  conclusion. 

i$2  3.  But  we  haye  yet  to  consider  the  nature  and  extent 
of  the  latter's  metaphysical  grounding  of  his  new  principle. 
The  secret  of  that  lies  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Monad.  For 
the  sphere  of  the  confused  and  unclear  ideas  is  not  only  psy- 
'  chological  but  also  metaphysical  in  its  import;  the  movement 
from  the  confused  to  the  logically  clear  ideas,  the  basis  of 
his  theory  of  knowledge,  is  only  conceivable  as  necessary,  on 
the  basis  of  the  metaphysical  necessity  of  the  determination 
of  the  Monad.  And  since  the  internal  happening  of  the 
Monad  is  the  metaphysical  ground  (jf  extenal  phenomenal 
relations,  the  identification  of  the  basal  law  of  that  haj)pen- 
ing,  causation,  with  the  basal  law  of  the  inner  movement  of 
the  Monad,  Sufficient  Reason,  is  logically  necessary. 

§24.  While  at  bottom  a  metaphysical  principle,  it  is 
easily  conceivable  from  the  foregoing  how  S.  R.  in  Leib- 
nitz may  appear  now"  as  the  outcome  of  a  logical  motive,  and 


/ 


•      • 


«       « 


4     % 


25 

again  as  the  result  of  psychological  considerations.  It  was- 
natural  that  the  first  formulation  of  a  principle  so  general, 
and  yet  so  capable  of  exposing  the  last  roots  and  problems 
of  knowledge,  should  be  uncertain  in  its  distinctions.  But 
the  state  in  which  the  problem  was  left  \yas  perhaps  one 
most  calculated  to  attract  to  it  the  attention  of  future  thought. 
If  Sufficient  Reason  is  a  new  principle  of  knowledge,  of 
validity  for  a  sphere  of  ideas  not  amenable  to  the  norms  of 
formal  logic,  what  is  the  relation  of  formal  logic  to  knowl- 
edge in  general?  Must  not  the  bounds  of  the  logical  con- 
sciousness— that  is  the  consciousness  concerned  Avith  neces- 
sary relations  among  ideas — be  extended  beyond  the  sphere 
of  formal  logic?  This  was  the  problem  which  lay  inevitably 
in  the  origin  of  Leibnitz's  principle. 

§25.  But  again  the  impetus  to  new^  metaphysical  formula- 
tions offered  by  Leibnitz's  origination  of  his  new^  law  was 
immense,  and  sufficient  to  obscure  the  preceding  problem  of 
the  possible  extension  of  the  concept  of  the  logical  conscious- 
ness. For  consider  that  in  the  place  of  the  belief  in  the 
ontoloo-ical  validity  of  the  results  of  purely  formal  logic, 
which  had  begun  to  wane,  there  was  now  offered  the  prob- 
lem (and  the  apparent  means  of  solving  it)  of  a  metaphysical 
determinism  other  than  logical.  Thus  was  inaugurated  the 
great  problem  of  the  transcendental  grounding  of  experience 
and  of  its  great  postulate,  the  law^  of  Sufficient  Reason. 
This  involved  the  Idealistic  position  of  the  identification,  not 
of  the  loo-ical  g-round  with  the  real  ground,  but  of  the  trans- 
cendental  knowledge  grounds  with  real  grounds,  the  identi- 
fication of  phenomenal  reality  with  the  knowledge  of  that  re- 
ality. This  logical  consequence,  though  not  carried  out  to 
the  completeness  attained  by  Kant  and  Schopenhauer,  is  yet 
clearly  enough  implied  in  Leibnitz's  thinking.  Thus  (in  the 
Letters  to  Clarke,  ^125)  the  metaphysical  universality  of  the 
law^  is  clearly  taught  It  is  the  principle  alike  of  external 
happening  and  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Monad,  and  again  the 
highest  concept  of  the  source  of  the  principle  is  that  of  the 
Creator,  "in  welchem  die  Macht  die  die  wirkinden  Ursachea 


26 


schafft  und  die  Weisheit  welche  die  Zweck-tluitigen  ordnet, 
sich  vereinigt  finden." 

The  difference  between  Leibnitz  and  his  rationalistic  pre- 
decessors is  this:  He,  too,  postulates  an  intellectual  world 
ground,  with  the  Christian  colorinij;^ — believing  that  it  must 
be  found  eventually  in  the  Will  of  God.  He,  too,  believes 
that  the  ideal  of  knowledge  is  logical  necessity  expressed  in 
the  two  positive  norms,  Identity  and  Contradiction.  But 
the  problem  of  Knowledge  he  finds  not  so  sinii)le,  and  in 
order  to  encompass  all  possible  emj)irical  knowledge  a  third 
principle  is  necessary,  which  he  formulates  in  the  general 
and  negative  way  that  we  have  seen.  It  is  general  in  that  it 
is  a  postulate,  that  ^///things  must  have  a  reason  and  a  cause. 
It  is  negative  in  that  in  its  emi)irical  ap|)licati{)n  the  postulate 
demands,  not  tliat  our  knowledge  proceed  by  identities  and 
lack  of  contradictions  in  concepts,  but  by  admitting  to  the  body 
of  our  ktiowledge  only  such  facts  and  judgments  of  facts  that 
have  a  sufficient  reason.*  The  validity  of  that  sufficiency 
he  further  proceeds  to  gound  metaphysically,  as  we  have 
already  seen.  That  he  should  have  confined  the  postulate 
of  Sufficient  Reason  to  empirical  truth  is  not  surprising,  nor 
that  he  should  have  failed  to  distinguish  the  logical  from  the 
metaphysical  aspect;  that  he  had  insight  enough  into  its 
logical  nature  to  make  it  coordinate  with  the  lon^r  estab- 
lished  norms  is  what  stamps  him  as  the  originator  of  a  new 
era  in  philosophical  thinking. 

§26.  Wolff  follows  Leibnitz  with  the  attempt  at  a  com- 
plete logical  expression  of  Sufficient  Reason  although  it  still 
lies  in  the  sphere  of  "Ontologie"  or  metaphysics.  In  the 
''Vernunftigc  Gcdankcn  von  Gott,  dcr  Welt  und  dcr  Scele,'"^  we 
are  told  that  while  equally  with  the  principles  of  Identity 
and  Contradiction,  that  of  Sufficient  Reason  lies  in  the 
nature  of  men,  yet  '*  Leibnitz  war  der  erste  seine  Wichtiirkeit 
zu  erkennen,  dass  nehmlich  alle  veritates  contimrentes  oder 
alle  zufiillige  Wahrheiten  aus  diesem  Satz  als  ihren  ersten 
Quellen  fliessen,  ja  vermoge  desselben,  die  contingentia  ihre 

*cf.  also  a  similar  negative  formulation  by  Kant,  H  36,  39.  '§30. 


V 


/ 


27 

'  veritatem  determinatem '  haben,  vermoge  dessen  sie  ein 
unendlicher  Verstand  vorher  wissen  konnte." 

But  to  the  rationalistic  mind  of  Wolff  it  appeared  that  if 
"'ein  unendlicher  Verstand"  knew  these  verities  beforehand, 
they  must  be  of  the  nature  of  logical  relations.  So  that  the 
attempt  is  made  to  secure  the  place  of  Sufficient  Reason  as  a 
logical  law,  and  this,  by  means  of  deduction  from  the  law  of 
Contradiction.  This  occurs  in  ''Ontologia''  (§§66-70.)  A 
thing  has  either  a  Sufficient  Reason  or  it  has  not.  In  the 
last  case  it  must  be  granted  that  there  is  something  which 
has  nothing  for  its  ground.  But  out  of  nothing  can  something 
never  be  known.  Baumgarten  repeats  the  same  proof  in 
Metaphysics  %  20.  The  pctitio  principii,  as  well  as  the  confu- 
sion of  real  and  knowledge  ground,  is  evident,  and  it  is  upon 
the  failure  of  this  proof  that  Crusius(as  we  shall  see)  takes  his 
stand  for  his  ow^n  point  of  view.  The  meaning  of  this  attempt 
to  prove  logically  what  Leibnitz  had  considered  in  the  light 
of  a  postulate  is  evidently  nothing  else  than  a  falling  back 
into  the  rationalism  against  which  the  new  law  had  risen  as  a 
protest.  What  had  been  with  Leibnitz  a  postulate  of  the 
necessary  Zusanunenhang  of  the  world  in  the  broadest  sense, 
and  of  our  ability  to  understand  the  same,  becomes  with 
Wolff  a  claim  for  the  logical  determinism  of  the  things  which 
make  up  the  world  of  contingency. 

To  be  sure  Wolff  had  distinguished  between  four  prin- 
ciples of  Sufficient  Reason* — cognoscendi,  the  logical  deduc- 
tion of  conclusions  from  premises;  fiendi,  from  which 
grounds  we  discover  the  reality  of  a  thing ;  essendiy  from 
which  the  possibility  of  a  thing  is  seen  (relation  in  space  and 
time);  agcndi,  in  the  ground  of  which  we  see  the  necessity 
of  an  act.  But  with  all  his  important  distinctions  which 
later  figure  so  materially  in  the  history  of  the  principle,  he 
never  left  the  rationalism  which  belonged  to  his  intuition  of 
the  world,  for  in  the  last  analysis  the  grounds  are  always 
determined  logically,^  and  grow^  out  of  the  Scholastic 
definition  of  the  "  thing,  "as  made  up  of  logical  characteristics. 

^  Ontologia,  ^  866.  '  Ontologia,  §  951. 


\ 


28 

§27-  The  study  of  Sufficient  Reason  in  the  '^  Entwurf  dcr 
noizvendigen  Vcrnunft-Walirlicitcn;'  1753,  by  Crusius  is  of 
the  nature  of  a  weak  protest  against  the  Wolffian  point  of 
view.*  Wolff  had  defined  philosophy  as  the  science  of  the 
possible,  thus  making  its  criteria  purely  logical,  all  that  could 
be  thought  without  contradiction  being  of  course  possible. 
This  covered  his  whole  view  of  Sufficient  Reason.  Crusius 
protested  against  this  by  defining   I'hilosophy  as  the  Science 

of  the  Real. 

A  ground  to  be  Sufficient  Reason  shall  not  suffice  merely 
if  it  involves  no  contradiction,  but  it  must  so  show  the  rela- 
tion as  to  make  it  evident  that  with  the  ground  the  conse- 
quence is  necessarily  givai.  How  docs  it  affect  reality,  if  the 
opposite  can  be  thought?  The  existence  of  the  opposite  cannot 
be  thouirht  of,  if  the  existence  is  once  known  to  be  a  real 
fact.2  Thus  the  distinction  made  by  Wolff  between  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  thought  and  hypothetical  necessity  which  is 
found  in  the  law  of  ground  in  contingent  reals  is  false,  and 
arises  out  of  the  subjective  relation  thereto.'^  All  necessity 
is  absolute,  but  not  all  logical  and  ca})able  of  being  expressed 
in  terms  of  knowledge.  This  point  is  weighty,  for  his  two 
great  contributions  to  the  problem  are: 

a.  His  clear  distinction  between  the  different  spheres  of 
the  functionin^r  of  Sufficient  Reason,  especiallv  between  the 
real  and  ideal  grounds,  and  : 

b.  His  especial  study  of  the  problem  of  the  ground  in  the 
sphere  of  the  Will. 

In  regard  to  the  first,  he  complains  of  the  changeable 
meaning  applied  to  the  term  ground,  and  especially  the  fail- 
ure to  keep  separate  the  ideal  ground  of  kntjwledge  and  the 
real  ground,  a  distinction  only  suggested  by  Wolff  and  not 
carefully  adhered  to.  '^Hierdurch  (Vermischung)  wird 
nicht  nur  die  Aufmerksamkeit  auf  das  wahre  Wesen  dersel- 
ben   verhindert,   sondern  auch  zu  der  Ubereilung  Gelegen- 

*  Reimarius— "  Die  Vernimftlehre  ^I20— also  stands  for  a  separation  of  the  meta- 
physical application  from  its  application  as  a  lojjical  principle. 

'  Dissertatio  Philosophii  de  Usit  et  Limitibus  Principii  Rationis  Dderminaniis 
vulge  Sujfficientis.     Lips.  1743,  §6. 

^Entwurj der  Not,   Wahr.— WW.     Cf.  also  Kant  ^.39. 


\ 


/ 


29 

heit  gegeben,  vermoge  welcher  man  annimt  dass  alle  wahr- 
haft  zureichende  Realgriinde  auch  zugleich  zureichende 
Erkentniss-griinde  apriori,  sein  mlissten."  ^  This  simply  means 
that  as  far  as  the  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  to  be  ap- 
plied to  the  real,  one  can  only  say  a  necessary  ^'Zusainmen- 
hang''  exists,  according  to  laws,  but  in  no  way  does  the 
rationalist's  postulate  follow  that  their  relations  may  be 
known  as  logically  expressed.  It  is  not  a  problem  of  the 
knowledge-ground  of  the  rational  possibility  of  a  thing,  but 
a  postulate  of  real  and  necessary  relations  among  things. 

§28.  Having  thus  separated  the  knowledge  or  logical 
problem  from  that  of  real  grounds,  he  next  divides  the 
sphere  of  the  latter  into  two  great  main  divisions,  the  moral 
and  physical  real.  This,  it  must  be  remembered,  rose  out 
of  his  moral  and  religious  problem  of  the  freedom  of  the 
will.  In  the  physical  sphere  we  have  two, aspects  of  the  real 
ground ;  first,  the  real  ground  as  cause,  to  explain  the  prob- 
lem of  becoming;  and  secondly,  the  real  ground  as  possi- 
bility, in  which,  like  Wolff,  he  brings  to  light  the  space  and 
time  conditions  of  empirical  judgments,  as  the  conditions  of 
the  possibility  of  the  real  or  the  ''law  of  ground"  of  being. 
This  was  later  developed  into  the  Kantian  modal  category  of 
the  Possible,  the  criteria  of  which  are  formal.  His  schemat- 
ism is,  so  to  speak,  the  setting  of  the  great  problem  of 
Sufficient  Reason  which  later  occupied  the  minds  of  Kant 
and  Schopenhauer.  It  may  be  expressed  somewhat  as  fol- 
lows (De  usu,  etc.,  §§35,  36): 

Ground. 


Moral. 


Real. 


Physical. 


Knowledge. 


Being-Cause. 


Possibility.       Apriori.   Aposteriori. 


Space  and  Time. 
Being. 


Experience. 


1  "  Entwurf  der  Not,   Wahr:'     Chap.  3,  §  38. 


30 

§29-  The  problem  of  Sufficient  Reason  in  the  s|)here  of 
Morals  or  of  the  Will,  is  his  chief  (juestion,  and  is  kept  care- 
fully distinct  from  the  physical  si)here.  But  here  ai^ain 
must  be  distinguished  carefully  between  the  ideal  and  real 
ground,  for  we  are  tempted  to  consider  the  idea  which  we 
call  motive,  (the  idea  which  is  the  ground  of  our  being  con- 
scious of  a  «'/// act,)  the  real  cause  or  ground  of  that  act. 
This  is  false,  for  it  is  foolish  to  ask  for  grounds  of  an  act  of 
will,  for  it  is  simply  the  nature  of  will  to  act  as  it  wills. 
Thus  he  champions  the  doctrine  of  Augustine  and  Scotus 
that  the  Will  is  independent  of  the  "  \^)rstellungen,"  not, 
however,  indeterminism,  for  the  law  of  ground  lies  in  the 
Will  itself.  To  ask  for  its  ground  in  an  idea  is  to  confuse 
knowledge  and  real  grounds,  for  will  is  real  and  force.  The 
proof  of  this  position  we  need  not  give,  for  it  rests  upon  cer- 
tain errors  concerning  the  definition  and  relation  ot  the  ideas 
of  substance  and  force,  and  an  application  of  the  same  to  a 
metaphysic  of  the  will  in  an  unjustifiable  manner.  Sufficient 
for  our  historical  study  is  it  to  notice  that  for  the  Will,  as 
well  as  for  simple  Being,  is  postulated  a  peculiar  law  of 
ground  which  dare  not  be  identified  either  with  causality  or 
Ideal  ground.* 

§30.  In  summing  up  the  Leibnitz-Wolffian  movement,  we 
may  describe  it  as  having  three  moments: 

(a.)  Leibnitz  propounds  the  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason 
as  a  postulate  of  empirical  knowledge,  extends  it  in  some  of 
his  formulations  to  a  general  logical  principle — thus  extend- 
ing potentially  the  sphere  of  logic  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
formal.  Not  being  able  to  achieve  the  full  formulation  of  his 
logical  motive,  he  finally  secures  universality  for  his  new 
principle  by  yielding  to  the  metaphysical  demand  which 
identified  it  with  the  universal  causal  determination,  devel- 
oped in  his  system,  grounding  it  on  his  Monadologie. 

(b.)  Wolff  attempts  to  restore  the  principle  to  the  place  of 
a  logical  law,  but  through  his  limited  notion  of  logic  and  the 
attempt  to  deduce  Sufficient  Reason  from  the  principles  of 

*cf.  Konig — ''  Die  Entwicke  lung  des  Causal  Problems,"'  Chap,  on  Crusius. 


\. 


/ 


31 

Identity  and  Contradiction,  he  falls  back  into  Pre-Leibnitz- 
ian    Rationalism,     (c.)    Crusius,    in    protest    against    Wolff's. 
Rationalism,  excludes  the   law  entirely  from   logic,  and  de- 
velops the  metaphysical  motive  of  Leibnitz  still  further. 


The  Kantians. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Sufficient  Reason  as  the  Basal  Law 
OF  Metaphysics. 


§31.  As  has  been  already  suggested  in  the  introductory 
chapter,  the  metaphysical  motive  in  Leibnitz's  formulation  of 
Sufficient  Reason  which  sought  to  ground  the  validity  of  the 
principle  in  extra-logical  considerations  and  which  was  car- 
ried out  in  Crusius'  construction  of  the  law  as  a  principle  of 
metaphysical  determination  rather  than  of  **  sufficiency  "  for 
knowledge,  finds  its  continuation  in  Kant  and  Schopenhauer. 
The  characteristic  of  this  entire  metaphysical  movement 
was  already  prominent  in  Crusius.  Besides  the  distinction 
between  ideal  and  real  grounds,  there  is  a  further  differentia- 
tion of  different  classes  of  real  grounds,  namely,  a)  those  of 
the  Sufficient  Reason  of  Being  as  afforded  by  the  relations 
of  space  and  time,  b)  of  Sufficient  Reason  of  Becoming,  in  the 
relations  of  Causality,  c)  the  grounds  of  Will  acts.  This  meta- 
physical differentiation  of  real  grounds  into  three  distinct 
classes,  becomes  prominent,  because  the  essentially  unitary 
and  logical  nature  of  the  law  sinks  out  of  sight. 

This  unitary  nature  of  the  Law  as  a  knowledge  postu- 
late both  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  seek  to"  restore,  the  former 
by  what,  following  Schopenhauer,  we  may  call  Transcen- 
dental Logic,  the  latter  by  his  doctrine  of  the  Intellectual 
Intuition,  both  of  which  are  in  their  essence  metaphysical 
principles. 

§  32.  Kant.  Kant  may  be  said  to  have  had  as  the  problem 
of  his  entire  thinking,  the  nature  of  philosophical  grounds. 
For  his  starting  point  was  given  him  by  the  Leibnitzian- 
school,  and   in  the  particular  problems  of  Crusius.     In  the 


32 

''Nova  Diliicidatio''  (or  fully  "^iven,    '' Principium  primoruni 
cognitionis  metaphysicae  nova  dilucidatid'^  1755  (Kant's   Habil- 
.   itation's  Schrift),  beside  the  laws  of  Identity  and  Contradic- 
tion is  considered  the  "  Satz  voin  Grunde.*' 

With  Crusius  Kant  acrrees  that  the  term  sufficient 
ground  (*' zureichender  ")  is  weak  and  chooses  ''determin- 
ing "  ("  bestimmender")  instead.  Moreover,  he  is  unsatisfied 
with  the  definition  of  Wolff,  that  the  ground  is  that  ''  durch 
das  voraus  mehr  sei  als  nicht  sei."  It  explains  nothing  for 
**T'^r^//^;"  means  simply  "  aus  welchem  grund."^  Thus  if 
the  only  determining  ground  is  that  its  opposite  can  not  be 
thought,  this  is  only  ideal  or  *'  nacJiJur  bcstimmenden  GriituV 
and  not  ''vorher  bestivnnenden,''  It  answers  the  question  of 
the  ''quod''  and  not  of  the  "wariuny  On  the  basis  of  this 
distinction  between  "vorhcr"'  or  "  antcccdcntcr''  ground  and 
"nachker^^  or  "  cojiscquentcr,^'  he  insists  upon  an  absolute 
determinism  for  the  iormer  or  real  ground  and  justifies  this 
thorough-going  determinism  against  the  attacks  of  Crusius, 
who  complained  that  it  made  impossible  the  freedom  of  the 
will.  Upon  the  basis  of  distinction  of  real  and  ideal  ground, 
Crusius  had  maintained  that  to  consider  an  idea,  cause  or 
ground  of  an  act  of  will  is  to  confuse  real  and  ideal  grounds. 
This  "  idea"  (Vorstellung)  is  the  Sufficient  Reason,  as  far  as 
the  knowledge  of  the  act  is  concerned,  but  it  cannot  be  said 
that  it  is  determining  for  the  individual  Will  itself.  Will 
contains  a  law  of  ground,  but  a  law  of  its  own,  for  *' durch 
das  blosse  Setzen  der  Willcns  Thlitigheit  alle  entgegen- 
gesetzten  Bestimmungen  ausgeschlossen  werden ;  folglich 
ist  ein  vorher  bcstimmenden  Grund  nicht  erforderlich.  "■ 

Kant  answers  with  a  keen  psychological  analysis  of  the 
Will  and  its  functions,  showing  that  there  is  a  distinction 
between  the  impulse  or  desire  which  is  the  determining 
ground  of  the  will  act  and  our  idea  of  the  same  which  we  use 
as  an  ideal  term  of  the  knowledge  of  will  acts.  Thus  partic- 
ular impulses  and  desires  are  the  motives  or  grounds  of  the 
decisions  of  the  Will,  although  they  are  to  be  included  in  the 

^§190.  *§§  199-203. 


\ 


y 


33 

Will  itself,  and  so  the  postulate  of  the  Law  of  Ground  is  ful- 
filled, which  demands  that  every  event  shall  have  its  Suffi- 
cient Reason  or  determining  ground. 

^33.  Kant's  next  step  is  in  the  direction  of  a  closer  study 
of  the  Law  of  Ground  in  things — the  principle  of  causation. 
In  1763  appeared  the  paper  entitled  "Versuch  den  Begriff 
der  negativen  Grossefi  in  die  Welt-Weisheit  hinein  zu  fiigen,'* 
in  which  is  to  be  seen  the  working  of  the  second  force 
brought  to  bear  upon  Kant,  namely,  the  Humian  criticism. 
Wolff  had  taken  the  empirical  postulate  of  Leibnitz  and 
jgiven  it  such  a  logical  turn  that  all  its  applications  were 
made  through  the  logical  principles  of  Identity  and  Contra- 
diction, to  the  latter  of  which  he  had  tried  to  make  it 
subordinate.  Kant  sees  that  in  the  sphere  of  the  real  these 
principles  are  not  applicable.  For  in  actual  nature  a  nega- 
tive force  in  relation  to  a  positive  (and  in  fact,  positive  and 
negative  functions  in  general)  do  not  constitute  a  contradic- 
tion. Though  both  positive  in  their  nature,  they  do  not 
annul  each  other  as  in  logic.  Thus  Wolff  in  the  **  Vernunf- 
tige  Gedanken'  had  taken  the  figure  of  Archimedes'  Scales  as 
an  intuitive  proof  of  contradiction  and  Sufficient  Reason  in 
relation  to  each  other.  An  exact  balance  is  an  intuitive 
contradiction  of  positive  and  negative.  Now,  if  one  side 
sinks,  the  contradiction  is  destroyed  and  there  must  be  a 
ground  why  that  side  has  sunk  rather  than  not.  Taking 
this  same  figure  of  the  scales,  Kant  shows  that  no  logical 
analogy  exists,  and  that  one  cannot  speak  of  the  two  sides 
being  in  contradiction,  but  rather  are  both  to  be  considered 
causes  in  producing  an  entirely  different  condition,  namely, 
the  new  state  of  the  balance  of  the  scales.  Thus,  likewise 
in  the  sphere  of  morals,  plus-crime  and  minus-crime  do  not 
equal  zero,  nor  do  pain  plus  pleasure  equal  zero,  but  pro- 
duce an  entirely  new  mental  state.  He  concludes,  there- 
fore, that  the  problem  of  causation  or  of  real  ground  lies 
entirely  outside  the  sphere  of  formal  logic. 

§34.  It  is,  however,  in  the  ''Grundsatze  des  reinen 
Verstandes,"  that  most  clearly  written  chapter  of  the  entire 


34 

Kritik.  that  we  have  at  the  same  time  the  full  expression^ 
of  Kant's  doctrine  of  Sufficient  Reason  and  the  source  of 
Schopenhauer's  formulation,  with  which  we  shall  later  be  con- 
cerned. After  considering  the  law  of  Contradiction  as  the 
supreme  principle  of  analytical  judgments,  Kant  asks  the 
question:  What  is  the  supreme  principle  of  synthetic  judg- 
ments? To  this  the  answer  is:  the  Law  of  Ground.*  That 
Kant  thus  identifies  the  Law  of  Ground,  the  principle  of 
empirical  judgments,  with  a  synthetic  function  of  mind 
rather  than  with  the  analytic  procedure  of  logic,  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  metaphysical  motive  of  Leibnitz,  which 
sought  an  extra-logical  validity  for  the  principle  of  Sufficient 
Reason.  In  further  asking  the  question,  how  synthetic 
judgments  a  priori,  without  logical  grounds,  are  possible 
Kant  is  obeying  the  logic  of  the  motive  and  seeking  a  meta- 
physical source  for  the  validity  of  the  extra-logical  law. 
The  ontologizing  of  this  fundamental  law  is  the  Transcen- 
dental Logic  of  the  Kantian  Kritik. 

§35.  'WiQ  general  Law  of  Ground  Kant  formulates  as  fol- 
lows:^ *<Ein  jeder  Gegenstand  steht  unter  den  notwendi- 
gen  Bedingungen  der  synthetischen  Manigfaltigkeit  der 
Anschauung  in  einer  moglichen  Erfahrung."  That  experi- 
ence be  possible,  it  is  necessary  that  in  the  complexes  which 
make  it  up,  necessary  and  universal  conditions  or  laws  of 
ground  exist,  by  which  each  element  may  be  held  in  its 
proper  place  in  the  whole.  What  then  are  the  particular 
principles  in  which  the  general  law  expresses  itself  ?  They 
are,  according  to  Kant,  four: 

'*'  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  (Reclam),  p.  202,  1781  Edition.  Kant  closes  the 
chapter  on  the  "  Clrundsatze  "  with  these  significant  words  :  "In  Ermangelung  dieser 
Methode"  (which  has  just  preceded — and  which  we  shall  give  below)  "und  bei  dem 
"Wahne,  synthetische  Satze,  welche  der  Erfahrungsgebrauch  des  Verstandes  als  seine 
Principien  empfiehlt,  dogmatisch  beweisen  zu  wollen,  ist  es  denn  geschehen,  dass  von 
dem  Satze  des  zureichenden  Grundes,  so  oft,  aber  immer  vergeblich  ein  Beweis  ist 
versucht  worden.  An  die  beiden  Ubrigen  Analogien  hat  niemand  gedacht  (Gemein- 
schaft  des  Seins  und  Causalitat  des  Werdens)  .  .  .  weil  der  Leitfaden  der  Categorien 
fehlte,  der  allein  jede  LUcke  des  Verstandes,  sowohl  in  Begriffen  als  Grundsatzen,. 
entdecken  und  merklich  machen  kann.** 

'  Reclam  Edition  (1781),  p.  I55- 


V 


35 

T.  Axiome  der  Anschauung, 
IL   Anticipationen  der  Wahrnehmung, 
in.   Analogien  der  Erfahrung,  and 

IV.  Postulate  des  empirischen  Denkensiiberhaupt.  That 
which  Kant  states  in  his  general  formulation — that  the 
condition  of  any  experience  whatsoever  is  a  supersensuous 
transcendental  relativity  of  all  the  phenomena  of  experience, 
a  general  law  of  ground  and  consequence  throughout  all 
mental  content,  he  proceeds  to  develop  in  the  particular 
spheres  of  phenomena.  The  axioms  of  the  Intuition  de- 
mand  that  relations  of  space  and  time,  transcendental  and 
extra-logical,  be  present,  if  we  are  to  have  empirical  knowl- 
edge or  experience  at  all.  The  analogies  of  experience,  of 
which  the  principal  cases  are  the  Causal  Axiom  and  the  con- 
cept of  Substance,  afford  the  transcendental  grounds  for 
empirical  judgments  of  relations.  Causality  is  the  typical 
expression  of  the  law  of  ground  among  phenomena  and 
changes  the  intuition  of  temporal  succession  into  a  synthetic 
judgment  of  the  Understanding  because  by  reason  of  it  we 
are  by  analogy  enabled  to  say  a  priori  that  if  a  certain  rela- 
tion of  ground  and  consequence  has  appeared  in  experience, 
when  the  cause  again  appears  it  will,  under  the  same  condi- 
tions, produce  the  same  effect. 

§  36.  The  law  of  ground,  than,  according  to  the  Kantian 
definition,  embraces  all  principles  of  relativity,  universal  and 
necessary,  which  underlie  our  empirical  judgments,  and  make 
them  valid.  This  validity,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  like 
Leibnitz,  he  conceives  to  be  extra-logical,  is  established  first 
in  a  negative  way,  in  that  without  these  transcendental 
principles  of  relativity,  empirical  knowledge  is  impossible. 
It  rests  upon  the  postulate  of  the  necessary  unity  of  apper- 
ception in  consciousness,  which  presupposes  unity  of  expe- 
rience to  all  possible  empirical  consciousness  at  any  time. 
Thus  we  have  the  Law  of  Ground  in  causation  as  a  sine  qua 
non  of  a  unity  of  experience,  or  of  the  subject-object  relation 
in  general.^  This  is  what  Schopenhauer  means  when  he  says: 

*  Reclam,  p.  172,   Part  II. 


3^ 

.^experience  is  throui^-h  and  throucrh  causality."   It  (causation) 
objectifies  subjective  ideas,  renders  possible  the  representa- 
tion  of  objects,  it  assigns  to  each  phenomenon,  as  a  conse- 
quence,  a  determined  place  according  to  the  Law  of  Ground 
in  what  would  otherwise  be  a  merely   psychological   flow  of 
ideas     It  renders  unified  experience  possible.     The  apparent 
pctitio  principal  involved  in  the  claim  of  the  universal  validity 
of  causality  for  all  experience,  because  it  alone  makes  expe- 
rience possible,  disappears  when   we  reflect  that  experience 
in  the  two  cases  is  different.     It  (causation)  is  universally 
valid  for  all  particular  experiences.      It  is,  however,  the  con- 
dition of  experience  in  general,  transcendental  experience. 

§37.    In  addition  to  the   negative  argument,  that  without 
these  transcendental  principles  of  necessary  relativity  empir- 
ical  knowledge    is  impossible,    Kant  seeks  a  more   positive 
grounding  of  the  necessary  relations  of  phenomenal  reality. 
The  question,  how  are  synthetic  judgments  a  prion  possible  is 
answered    by    the   Objective    Deduction   of   the    categories, 
which  we  have  called  the  Transcendental  Logic.     Relations 
of  space  and  time,  which   Kant  describes  under  the  general 
terms  of  Gemeinschaft   des  Seins,   relations  of   causality,    or 
the  Causalitcit  des  Werdens,  are  the  true  principles  of  Sufficient 
Reason  of  reality.      Upon    these    mathematical    and  causal 
judgments  rest.      But  these,  Kant  complains,  had  remained 
undiscovered,  because  his  predecessors  had  sought  to  prove 
the  validity  of  the  Law  of  Ground  by  subsuming  it  under  the 
principles  of  formal  analytical  logic.     This  was  especially 
true  in  the  case  of  Wolff.     It  did  not  occur  to  them  to  fol- 
low the  guiding  thread  of  the  categories  which   govern  our 
synthetic  judgments,  and  which  point  to  transcendental  roots. 
The   manner  in   which   Kant  connects   all   the  empirical 
principles  developed  in  the  Grundsatze  with  the  Aristotelian 
categories  of  logical  relation — the  criticism  which  this  forced 
architectonic  has  brought  upon  him  need  not  detain  us  here. 
We  need  only  consider  the  idea  which  dominated  it  and  its 
application  to  the  two  empirical  expressions  of  the  Law  of 
Ground  developed  above. 

*  ••  Satz  vom  Grunde,'*  §  23. 


V 


«  t 


37 

§  38.  The  principles  of  necessary  relativity  in  space  and 
time  which  are  expressed  as  community  of  Being  (Gemfein- 
schaft  des  Seins)  and  causality,  are  deduced  from  the  two  im- 
portant categories  of  reality  and  necessity,  the  categorical 
and  the  hypothetical  judgments.  At  first  sight,  it  would 
seem  that  the  Law  of  Ground  is  recognized  as  a  formal  logical 
principle,  but  in  reality  this  cannot  be  said  to  be  true.  The 
truer  view  is  that  these  logical  forms  are  the  conceptual 
expression  of  transcendental  principles  which  govern  the 
empirical  judgments  of  space,  time,  and  causal  relations. 
By  following  them  as  a  guiding  thread  we  may  reach  the 
transcendental  conditions  of  knowledge  ;  they  themselves  are 
only  conceptual  signs.  In  other  words  it  is  in  their  meta- 
physical significance  that  they  constitute  the  Law  of  Ground. 
This  is  Kant's  Transcendental  Logic.  For  the  hypothetical 
judgment,  as  a  formal  relation  of  concepts,  is  an  analytical 
procedure,  says  Kant,  as  a  transcendental  logic  of  experience, 
it  is  synthetic.  This  distinction  Kant  brings  out  clearly  in 
a  later  essay  ''Ueber  die  Fortschritte  in  der  Metaphysik 
seit  Leibnitz  und  Wolff."  ^  The  one  great  advance  he  insists 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Law  of  Ground  has  become  entirely 
metaphysical  and  has  ceased  to  be  subsumed  under  the  logical 

laws. 

§  39.  Still  more  clearly  is  its  relation  to  logic  stated  in 
the  reply  to  Eberhardt's  criticism  of  his  ''  Reine  Vernunft,'"^ 
where  he  maintains  that  the  purely  logical  law,  '^Ein  jeder 
Satz  muss  einen  Grund  haben,"  is  clearly  subordinate  to 
**  Contradiction."  The  Sufficient  Reason  whose  principles 
we  have  studied  is  entirely  outside  the  norms  of  logic,  is  the 
Sufficient  Reason  of  empirical  reality — and  as  such  meta- 
physical in  its  essence.  In  thus  developing  a  transcenden- 
tal Law  of  Ground  for  empirical  reality,  of  the  same  validity 
as  the  logical  norms  for  the  sphere  of  pure  concepts,  that 
has  been  found  for  which  Leibnitz  in  vain  sought — an  expla- 
nation of  the  necessity  of  empirical  knowledge. 

1  Complete  Works,  Hartenstein  Edition,  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  538- 

'  Hartenstein,  C.  W.   VI.,  p.   10,   '' Ueber  tine  neue  Entdeckung  nach  der  alle 
Vernunft  Kritik  entbehrlich  gemacht  werden  soil.'' 


38 

The  distinction  between  the  logical  postulate  of  Ground 
and  Consequence,  and  the  metalogical  principles  of  trans- 
scendental  validity  which  give  necessity  to  phenomenal  rela- 
tions is  the  cardinal  point  of  Kant's  thinkint^  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  study  in  hand,  and  remains,  as  we  shall  see,  an 
unsolved  dualism  in  his  theory  of  knowledge. 

Having  confined  the  logical  Law  of  Ground  to  the  formu- 
lation, '*Ein  jeder  Satz  muss  einen  Grund  haben,"  Kant 
finds  the  corresponding  postulate  of  the  transcendental  logic 
expressed  in  what  he  calls  the  chief  postulate  of  empirical 
thought  in  general,  ''In  murido  non  datur  hiatus,  7ion  datur 
saltus,  non  datur  casus,  non  datur  fatum.'*  This  postulate 
is  the  underlying  condition  of  all  experience,  and  expresses 
the  necessity  inherent  in  the  forms  of  space,  time  and  caus- 
ality already  considered.* 

§40.  The  metaphysical  tendency  in  Leibnitz's  formulation 
of  the  law  is  thus  carried  a  step  further.  The  impulse  which 
led  Kant  in  his  early  essay  to  substitute,  in  agreement  with 
Crusius,  "determining  grounds"  for  "sufficient  reason," 
and  upon  the  study  of  Hume,  to  separate  absolutely  the 
necessity  of  formal  logic  from  that  of  empirical  knowledge, 
leads  him  to  a  metaphysical  construction  of  all  empirical 
determination  and  to  ground  this  determinism,  not  in  an 
ontology  of  the  real,  such  as  the  Leibnitzian  Monadism,  but 
in  an  ontology  of  our  knowledge  processes,  which  has  been 
called  the  Transcendental  Logic. 

We  may  therefore  formulate  Kant's  doctrine  of  Sufficient 
Reason  as  follows:  The  Law  of  Ground  is  the  fundamental 
postulate  of  empirical  knowledge,  "das  oberste  Principium 
aller  synthetischen  Urtheile,"  in  that  it  demands  that  every 
phenomenal  element  shall  have  a  necessary  phenomenal 
ground.  The  empirical  expressions  of  that  law  are  the 
necessary    relations   of    space,    time    and    causality.      Since, 

*  As  a  result  of  the  whole  study  we  find  these  words  of  Kant,  as  the  rule  of 
empirical  investigation  :  "  In  der  empinschen  Synthesis  nichts  zuzulassen  was  dera 
Verstande  und  dem  continuirlichen  Zusammenhange  aller  Enscheinungen  d.  i.  der 
Einheit  einen  Eintrag  thun  konnte.  Denn  er  ist  es  allein  worin  die  Einheit  der 
Erfahrung  in  der  alle  Wahrnehmungen  ihre  stelle  haben  mussen,  moglich  wird." 


V 


/ 


39 

Ihowever,  the  Law  of  Ground  is  merely  a  phenomenal  prin- 
ciple, necessity  only  a  subjective  postulate,  empirical  reality, 
and  the  knowledge  of  that  reality  fall  together,  and  the  law 
of  ground  is  likewise  a  principle  of  real  necessity— in  other 
words,  a  metaphysical  principle  metaphysically  grounded  as 

we  have  seen. 

'  It  is  however,  and  this  is  an  important  proviso,  only  by 
following  the  ''  Leitfaden  "  of  the  logical  categories  that  the 
necessary  empirical  relations  are  discovered.  Thus,  while 
the  Law  of  Ground  is  not  confined  to  the  formal  logical 
expression  of  the  postulate  "  ein  jeder  Satz  muss  einen  Gund 
haben,"  it  is  nevertheless  logical  in  its  essence,  in  that  in  all 
the  phenomenal  manifestations  ol  the  principle,  the  axioms 
of  the  spacial  and  causal  world,  logical  dependence  is  the 
transcendental  concept  which  underlies  them. 

§41.   From  this  two  important  results  for  historical  con- 
sideration follow : 

I.  A  distinct  movement  toward  a  development  of  a 
broader  view  of  the  logical  consciousness  is  discernable. 
Though  Kant  defined  the  Law  of  Ground  or  Sufficient 
Reason  as  extra-logical  and  transcendental,  it  was  only  such 
in  so  far  as  by  logical  the  formal  logic  of  concepts  was  meant. 
That  he  recognized  the  logical  kernel  in  the  Causal  axiom, 
and  even  tried  to  find  it  in  spatial  and  temporal  relations 
.of  coexistence,  indicates  his  appreciation  of  some  of  the 
problems  of  logic  in  its  broader  sense.  Thus  by  means  of  a 
subjective  deduction  of  the  categories  which  should  be  of 
the  nature  of  a  "  psychologische  Erganzung"  to  the  objec- 
tive logical  deduction,  and  which  should  show  how  -das 
Vermogen  zu  denken  selbst  moglich  Sei  was  gleichsam  die 
Aufsuchung  der  Ursache  zu  einer  gegebenen  Wirkung  sei," 
and  -insofern  etwas  einer  Hypothese  ahnliches  an  sich 
habe,"^  Kant  sought  to  show,  by  means  of  the  psychological 
phenomenology  of  judgment,  how  the  Law  of  Ground  was 
equally  the  basal  law  of  the  intuitional  and  conceptional  ele- 

^Kritik  derR.   V.,  introduction  to  first  edition.     Cf.  also  Natorp.  Einleitungin 

Jie  Psychologic,  nach  Kritischer  Methode,  p.  128. 


40 

ments  in  knowledge,  holding  them  in  a  unity,  which  alone 
made  empirical  knowledge  possible.  This  meant,  however, 
the  extension  of  logical  validity  and  necessity  to  empirical 
judgments  as  well. 

It  is,  however,  by  virtue  of  the  transcendental  logic  of 
the  catagories,  that  function  in  the  Intuition  and  the  Under- 
standing, that  this  conditional  necessity  exists.  The  Tran- 
scendental Logic  without  the  content  of  the  intuition  could 
not  give  necessary  relations  of  the  **  Intelligible  World,"  nor 
could  necessary  relations  of  the  empirical  world  be  found  in 
the  content  of  the  Intuition  alone.  **  Concepts  without 
intuition  are  empty,  intuition  without  concepts  blind." 
Concepts  and  Intuition,  *'Begriffe  und  Anschauung"  are 
together  the  sphere  of  the  functioning  of  the  Law  of  Ground,, 
and  its  conditioned  necessity.  Separated,  they  are  incap- 
able of  relations  of  ground  and  consequence.  This  principle, 
which  may  be  called  the  **  Balance  of  Concept  and  Intu- 
ition" in  Kant's  formulation  of  the  ''  Law  of  Ground"  repre- 
sents his  critical  position  strikingly  and  is  a  point  of  view 
from  which  the  preceding  and  following  formulations  may 
be  studied. 

§42.  Such  a  study  would  show  that  Kant  stands  as  a  crit- 
ical mediator  between  two  possible  formulations  of  the  Law 
of  Ground,  that  which  confines  it  to  the  sphere  of  the  formal 
logic  of  concepts,  to  the  exclusion  of  1  intuitional  side,  and 
that  theory  which,  excluding  the  conceptu^.  '-^'^ent,  makes, 
it  a  law  of  the  Intuition,  ''Anschauung."  Both  ot  these  one- 
sided developments  are  dogmatic,  and  in  the  historical 
development  which  is  the  substance  of  the  present  study, 
represented  by  Wolff  in  the  one  case  and  Schopenhauer  in 
the  other.  The  nature  of  Wolff's  (and  before  him  Spinoza's) 
dogmatism  was  seen  to  be  the  postulating  of  metaphysical 
validity  for  merely  formal  logical  relations  of  concepts. 
That  of  Schopenhauer,  we  shall  see,  lies  in  postulating  the 
validity  of  the  Law  of  Ground  in  the  simple  intuition,  inde- 
pendent  of  concepts.  The  Transcendental  Logic  of  Kant  is 
beyond  both  these  dogmatisms,  and  protests  against  both. 


\ 


/ 


«      • 


.«      • 


41 

§  43.  This  is  the  second  historical  point  of  importance,  this 
critical  balance  of  Kant  between  two  possible  extremes  of 
dogmatism.  The  Law  of  Ground  is  certainly  a  logical 
postulate,  but  it  is  not  ^  principle  of  merely  formal  logic. 
Secondly,  while  the  postulate  of  ground  is  not  a  law  of 
formal  logic,  it  is  not  therefore  unlogical,  and  non-concep- 
tual, as  Schopenhauer  later  maintained.  Already  in  Kant's 
life-time  an  attempt  was  made  to  do  away  with  this  critical 
balance  of  conceptual  and  intuitive  knowledge,  held  to- 
gether by  the  concept  of  a  Transcendental  Logic.  Eberhardt 
sought  to  restore  the  uncritical  philosophy  by  a  doctrine  of 
"  Intellectuelle  Auschauung  "  according  to  which  all  knowl- 
edge of  relations  is  intuitional.  It  is  of  interest  to  us  only 
to  see  how  Kant  answers  this  heresy  against  the  "  Kritik:^ 
In  his  answer  to  Eberhardt,*  {^Ueber  eine  neue  Entdeckung 
nach  dcr  alle  Vernu7ift-Kritik  entberhlich  geniacht  werden 
soli;'  Kant  points  out  very  clearly  the  conceptual  logical 
nature  of  all  relations  of  ground  and  consequence,  showing 
that  the  simple  elements  in  space  and  time,  the  point,  and  the 
concepts  of  cause  and  effect  are  all  abstractions  and  therefore 
conceptual  in  nature.  The  whole  problem  is  how  we  shall 
define  "  Intuition  "—but  it  is  clear  to  Kant  that  it  is  not 
intellectual  in  its  nature,  but  expresses  only  the  manner  in 
which  we  are  affected  by  the  unknown  thing  in  itself. 

SCHOPENHAUER. 

§44.  The  classical  formulation  of  the  Principle  of  Sufficient 
Reason  is  the  "  Vierfaclie  Wiirzel  des  ZureicheJtden  Grundes;* 

»  Hartenstein,  Kanfs  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VI,  p.  i8.  "  Die  einfachen  Elemente 
der  Anschauung  liegen  vollig  auserhalb  der  Sinnlichkeit,"  are  intellectual  and  con- 
ceptual. It  becomes  certain  therefore  that  "  das  Einfache.  (der  Punkt)  als  Grund  zu 
der  Anschauung  in  Raum  und  Zeit,  hinzu  vernunftelt  ist."  We  have  then  this 
dilemma  before  us—* -Bins  von  Beiden,  entweder  die  Anschauung  ist  der  Anschau- 
ung nach,  ganz  intellectuelle  d.  i.  wir  schauen  die  Dinge  an,  als  sie  an  sich  sind  und 
die  Sinnlichkeit  besteht  lediglich  in  der  Verworrenheit  ;  oder  sie  ist  nicht  intellectuelle, 
wir  verstehen  darunter  nur  die  Art  wie  wir  von  einem,  an  sich  nns  unbekannten  Object 
afficiert  werden."  The  concept  "  Intellectuelle  Anschauung"  is  then  a  contradiction 
in  adjecto  and  arises  alone  from  an  attempt  to  extend  Sufficient  Reason  where,  it  does 
not  belong,  i.  e.,  by  making  it  a  law  of  Objective  Reality  itself,  which  we  intuit. 


42 

Historically,  however,  the  differentiation  of  the  four  roots 
or  forms  of  the  principle  goes  back  to  Crusius,  while  the 
content  poured  into  the  moulds  is  entirely  Kantian.  The 
points  of  striking  dissimilarity  between  Kant  and  Schopen- 
hauer are ;  a)  the  manner  in  which  Schopenhauer  gives  a  meta- 
physical  significance  to  the  specialization  of  the  four  form^ 
of  ground,  while  with  Kant  the  distinctions  were  not  funda- 
mental,  b)  The  fact  that  in  Schopenhauer  the  logical  nature 
of  the  postulate  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  entirely  denied,  and 
consequently  a  constant  war  is  waged  against  Kant's  Trans- 
cendental Logic,  c)  Schopenhauer's  doctrine  of  Sufficient 
Reason  as  a  principle  of  intuitive  knowledge  instead  of 
logical  thought.  The  tendency  of  his  entire  thinking  may 
therefore  be  summed  up  as  entirely  in  the  direction  of  a 
metaphysical  formulation. 

§45.    The    crucial   point  in  Schopenhauer's  doctrine  ot 
Sufficient  Reason  is  his  theory  of  the  specific  nature  of  the 
four  different  kinds  of  necessities  in  the  relations  of  space  and 
time,  of  causality,  of  logic  or  conceptual  thought  and  of  will 
motives.      It  has  been  the  mistake  of  past  thinking,  he  insists, 
that,  in  following  the  natural  impulse  to  unification,  it  has 
been  taken  for  granted  that  there  is  only  one  Law  of  Ground, 
and  one  order  of  necessity,  while  in  reality,  the  principle  of 
S.  R.   is  only    '' ein   gemeinschaftlicher   Ausdruck  fur  vier 
ganz  verschiedene  Verhiiltnisse,"  ^  each  of  which  has  its  own 
particular  necessity.     These  four  entirely  different  phenom- 
enal expressions  of  the  law  of  ground  are  determined  by  an 
inductive  study  of  the  ideal  content  of  consciousness.     The 
method  of  this  specification,  as  he  explains  in  the  paragraph 
on  method, =  follows  the  Kantian  division  of  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge (Erkentniss  Kriifte)  into  Sinnlichkeit,  Verstand,   Ver- 
nunft  and  Wollen.       Kant  had   indeed   followed  such  a  divi- 
sion, and   had,  as  we   have  already  seen,^  developed  in  the 
'*  Grundsatze"  the  different  forms,  which  the  general  prin- 


\     m  / 


>"   Vier/ach€  Wurzel"  §52. 
*••  Vier f ache  Wurzel^  §§  I.  2. 


•Cf.  paragraphs  35.  36. 


43 

ciple  of  ground  assumes  in  its  empirical  use ;  and  before  him 
Crusius  had  likewise,  besides  the  fundamental  distinction 
between  real  and  knowledge  grounds,  distinguished  among 
real  grounds  those  of  being,  spatially  and  temporally  deter- 
mined, of  becomifig,  causally  determined,  of  will^  or  motive 
grounds.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  what,  with  Crusius 
and  Kant,  especially  the  latter,  was  more  a  matter  of 
schematism  and  definition,  Schopenhauer,  in  somewhat 
scholastic  fashion,  makes  fundamental  and  metaphysical. 

§  46.  The  development  of  this  theory  of  the  specific  neces- 
sities of  different  kinds  of  relations  of  ideas,  leads  to  the  dif- 
ferentiation ot  four  distinct  classes:  I.  The  relations  of  space 
and  time,  transcendental  and  a  priori^  are  so  given  in  the 
intuition,  that  certain  relations  of  points,  given  in  space  or 
time,  determine  the  place  of  others  in  the  intuitional  complex. 
This  is  the  Law  of  Ground  of  Being,  and  upon  it  is  based  the 
whole  of  mathematics,  geometry  upon  the  spacial  and  arith- 
metic upon  the  temporal  necessity.  Out  of  this  position  the 
theory  naturally  follows,  and  it  is  one  which  Schopenhauer 
maintains  with  especial  interest,  that  geometrical  reasoning 
is  not  a  logical  process,  but  that  its  necessity  is  a  matter  of 
intuition.^  The  relation  of  this  theory  of  the  Law  of  Ground 
of  space  and  time  relations,  to  Kant's  '*  Axiome  der  Anschau- 
ung  "  is  evident.* 

2.  Causality,  or  the  Law  of  Ground  of  Becoming,  is  that 
/? /r/^r?  relation  among  ideas,  by  means  of  which  **ein  un- 
mittelbares,  intuitives  Auffassen  der  ursachlichen  Verbind- 
ung "  is  possible.  Something  more  than  the  temporal 
relations  of  succession  is  expressed  in  the  causal  judgment. 
It  is  the  specific  necessity  of  the  causal  relation,  but  it  is  not 
a  conceptual  logical  postulate  reflectively  applied  to  the 
phenomenal   subjective  succession,  thus  giving  it  empirical 

>  Schopenhauer  himself  admits,  "  Welt  als  Wille,  &c.,"  page  150,  that  only  the 
recognition,  the  "  cognitio"  of  geometrical  necessity,  is  intuitive.  The  proof  or  '' con- 
victio  "  is  logical.  This  theory  of  mathematics  is  of  course  now  discredited.  The  best 
<iiscusssion  of  the  problem  is  in  the  second  volume  of  Wundt's  Logic. 

*  a.  \  35. 


44 

objectivity,  as  in  the  theory  of  Kant,  which  we  have  studied. 
*'  Matter  is  through  and  through  causality,"  but  this  caus- 
ality is  already  given  in  the  intuition  of  matter,  for  matter 
is  defined  as  ideas  in  this  necessary  a  priori  "  togetherness." 
We  have  not  the  space  to  develop  further  this  theory  of 
causation,  which  comes  so  near  to  an  identification  of 
causality  with  mere  temporal  succession  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  a  materialistic  metaphysic  on  the  other.  For  our 
historical  study  the  important  thing  is  the  exclusion  of  the 
logical  element  from  the  causal  concept,  which  is  character- 
istic of  Schopenhauer's  theory. 

3.  The  third  phenomenal  manifestation  of  the  Law  of 
Ground  is  that  of  the  Will  in  motivation.  This  is  the 
"  Causalitat  von  innen  gesehen  "  ;^  that  is  :  the  same  necessary 
binding  together  of  ideas,  which,  from  an  objective  stand- 
point, we  call  causality,  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  sub- 
jective worth,  experience,  sufficiency  of  motive.  Causal 
necessity  expresses  itself  directly  in  the  subjective  grouping 
of  ideas  only  as  motivation  of  the  Will.  Both  the  special 
theory  of  the  Will  developed  by  Crusius^  and  the  Kantian 
distinction  of  the  empirical  from  the  transcendental  Will 
were  important  historical  antecedents  of  Schopenhauer's 
doctrine.  The  source  of  knowledge  of  the  Will  causality  is, 
as  in  the  preceding  two  forms  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  direct 
immediate  intuition. 

§47.  The  three  kinds  of  nvz/ grounds  thus  described  are,, 
according  to  Schopenhauer,  known  by  us  directly  in  an  In- 
tellectual Intuition  and  are  not  the  result  of  an  application  of 
a  logical  postulate  to  phenomena.  There  is,  however,  a  class- 
of  ideas  in  which  a  logical  principle  of  ground  is  discovera- 
ble. These  are  the  abstract  ideas  or  concepts.  Schopen- 
hauer's nominalistic  doctrine  of  abstract  concepts,  and  the 
absolute  distinction  he  makes  between  "  Begriffe  "  and 
*•  Vorstellungen  "  is  the  basis  for  the  most  fundamental  dif- 
ferentiation of  ideal  and  real  grounds.      While  knowledge  of 

» •*  Vierfache  WurzeC  p.  163,  §  43- 
■  Cf.  \  29. 


\ 


/ 


t         • 


45 

the  latter  is  immediate  and  intuitive,  the  former  are  dis- 
coverable in  the  norms  and  laws  of  formal  logic.  But  since 
logical  processes  are  confined  to  the  formal  manipulation  of 
concepts,  out  of  which  the  intuitive  element  of  reality  is 
abstracted,  they  can  give  no  real  knowledge.  Beside  the 
categories  of  formal  logic.  Identity,  Contradiction  and  Ex- 
cluded Middle,  there  is  another  class  of  metalogical  truths, 
which  constitute  the  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  all 
knowledge,  in  the  broadest  sense. ^  These  are  the  meta- 
physical categories  of  dependence,  which  function  both  in 
the  intuition  and  in  conceptual  thought.  Identity  and  Suf- 
ficient Reason  are  the  typical  categories  of  this  sphere. 

§  48.  Sufficient  Reason  he  speaks  of  as  a  metalogical  truth 
par  excellence y  which  functions  unlogically  in  space,  time, 
causality  and  motivation.  It  is  not  only  transcendental,  but 
logically  prior  to  all  the  empirical  expressions  of  the  Law  of 
Ground.-  Its  secret  lies  hid  in  that  metaphysical  knot,  th 
Subject-Object  relation,  and  we  can  only  come  to  it  through 
**  eine  Selbst-Untersuchung  der  Vernunft,"  which  would 
disclose  this  truth  as  the  condition  of  the  possibility  of  all 
mental  life.^  Thus  is  the  unitary  nature  of  the  law  still 
retained.  Just  how  Schopenhauer  conceives  this  unitary 
metaphysical  principle  is  a  problem  which,  when  answered, 
w^ill  disclose  both  his  relation  to  the  Kantian  formulation  and 
to  the  question  of  the  logical  nature  of  Sufficient  Reason  as 
a  universal  postulate. 

§49.  Kant,  likewise,  had  defined  the  Law  of  Ground, 
which  he  calls  '*  das  oberste  Principium  aller  synthetischen 
Untheile,"  as  metalogical  ^n  contrast  to  the  analytic  nature 
of  formal  logic.     He  defines  the  general  principle  as  one  coex- 

1  ••  Vierfache  Wurzel''  §  29. 

*Cf.  •*  Vierfache  Wurzel,''  §  35,  where  he  says:  "  Daher  bin  ich  in  dieser 
Abhandlung  bemUht,  den  Satz  vom  zureichenden  Grunde  als  ein  Urteil  aufzustellen, 
das  einen  vierfachen  Grund  hat,  nicht  etwa  vier  verschiedene  Grtinde  die  zufallig  auf 
dasselbe  Urteil  leiteten,  sondern  einen  vierfach— darstellenden  Grund  den  ich  bildlich 
Wurzel  nenne." 

»  But  "  Konnte  das  Subject  sich  selbst  erkennen,  so  wUrden  wir  auch  unmittelbar 
und  nicht  erst  durch  Versuchean  Vorstellungen  jene  Gesetze  (metalogische)  erkennen." 


tensive  with  the  necessary  *'  Zusammenhang"  of  all  phenom- 
enal reality,  as  was  shown  by  his  very  broad  formulation  of 
it.*  But,  as  we  have  seen,  he  contended  that  the  law  was  in 
essence  a  logical  postulate,  developing  in  the  Deduction  of 
the  Categories  what  was  called  the  Transcendental  Logic. 
Schopenhauer,  however,  denies  a  logical  character  to  this 
unitary  principle,  logic  being  confined,  according  to  his  nar- 
row formal  view  of  it,  to  only  one  class  of  ideas,  namely, 
abstract  notions,  according  to  his  nominalism,  with  no 
relation  to  reality. 

§  50.  The  only  unitary  characteristic  which  is  present  in 
all  these  specifications  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  these  *  *  vier  ganz 
verschiedene  Verhliltnisse,"  is  the  universal  form  of  time. 
Temporal  succession  is  the  last  term  of  all  experience,  the 
ever  present  formal  side  of  every  particular  expression  of  S. 
R.  This  identification  of  the  general  metalogical  principle 
with  temporal  succession  comes  about  in  the  following  wav  : 
Schopenhauer,  following  Kant,  identifies  the  Law  of 
Ground  with  the  general  postulate  of  a  necessary  connection 
among  all  elements  of  empirical  reality,  among  all  phenomena, 
and  makes  it  coextensive  with  phenomenal  reality,  defining  the 
relation  of  subject  to  object  in  the  Kantian  manner.^  But 
while  with  Kant  the  subjective  flow  of  ideas  becomes  empir- 
ical reality  by  virtue  of  the  Transcendental  Logic  (which 
includes  the  entire  category-doctrine)  with  Schopenhauer  the 
unitary  principle  of  objectification  is  temporal  succession 
conceived  of  as  a  metaphysical  transcendental  principle. 
**  Die  Zeit  ist  das  Einfache,  nur  das  Wesentliche  enhaltende 

^  Kritik  der  Reinen  Vernunft,  Reclam,  p.  155,  ij  4  :  "  Ein  jeder  Gej^'enstand  steht 
anter  den  notwendigen  Bedingungen  der  synthetischen  Einheit  des  Manigfaltigen  in 
einer  moglichen  Erfahning." 

*•*  Vier f ache  Wurzel,''  %  it  .  "  Unser  Bewustsein  soweit  es  als  Sinnlichkeit, 
Verstand  und  Vernunft  erscheint,  zerfallt  in  Subject  und  Object  und  enthalt  (bis 
dahin)  nichts  ausserdem  ;  Object  fUr  das  Subject  sein  und  unsere  Vorstellungen  sein 
ist  dasselbe.  Alle  unsere  Vorstellungen  sind  Objecte  des  Subjects  und  alle  Objecte  des 
Subjects  sind  unsere  Vorstellungen.  Aber  (so  mUssen  wir  fortahren)  nichts  fUr  sich 
Bestehendes  und  Unabhangiges,  auch  Nichts  Einzelnes  und  Abgerissenes,  kann  Object 
far  uns  werden,  sondern  nur  in  einer  gesetzmassigen  und,  der  form  nach,  a  priori 
bestimmbarren  Verbindung." 


\ 


/ 


47 

Schema  aller  Gestaltungen  des  Satzes  vom  Grunde."  ^  For 
the  Law  of  Ground  to  be  fulfilled  something  must  always 
precede,  as  cause,  or  warrant,  or  motive  ;  and  this  preceding  is 
the  formal  condition  for  the  finding  of  a  Sufficient  Reason  for 

what  follows. 

§  51.  In  finding  the  universal  principle  of  S.  R.  in  tem- 
poral succession,  Schopenhauer  does  not  of  course  mean  mere 
psychological  succession.  Kant's  criticism  of  Hume  had 
shown  that  mere  succession  could  not  be  raised  to  the  neces- 
sity of  ground  and  consequence.  The  alternative  therefore 
is  either  to  accept  the  logical  element,  as  a  postulate  thought 
into  the  mere  temporal  succession,  or  excluding  the  logical 
element,  to  raise  temporal  succession  to  a  metaphysical 
principle,  and  with  it  the  Law  of  Ground  as  identical  with 
succession.  This  Schopenhauer  did,  and  in  so  doing  made 
Sufficient  Reason  a  purely  metaphysical  law.  Two  doctrines 
naturally  follow  from  this  theory : 

1.  Logical  relations  are  reduced  to  one  of  the  four 
specific  forms  of  succession,  and  made  only  one  of  the  four 
principles  of  ground. 

2.  Since  the  knowledge  of  these  phenomenal  manifesta- 
tions of  S.  R.  is  not  obtainable  through  logical  reasoning, 
that  is  in  the  application  of  logical  postulates  to  empirical 
reality,  some  new  principle  of  knowledge  other  than  logical 
must  be  sought.  This  necessity  Schopenhauer's  theory  was 
able  to  meet  by  means  of  his  doctrine  of  **  Intellectuelle 
Anschauung."  In  intuiting  ideas  in  their  temporal  succes- 
sion we  intuit  likewise  their  necessary  relations  either  as 
cause  and  effect,  as  motive  and  will  act,  as  ground  and  con- 
sequence. In  this  doctrine  of  the  intuition  of  grounds  and 
consequences,  we  have  the  necessary  outcome  of  Schopen- 
hauer's theory  of  Specification. 

§  52.    All  the  elements  of  Schopenhauer's  theory  are  now 

>  Vier f ache  IVurzel,  %%  46  ;  T43.  And  again  §  52,  he  calls  it :  "  Der  immanente 
Keim  aller  Dependenz,  Relativitat,  Instabilitat  und  Endlichkeit  in  unserem  subject- 
object  befangenen  Bewustsein  ....  welche  das  Christentum  mit  richtigem  Sinn  die 
Zeitlichkeit  nennt." 


48 

before  us.  On  the  one  hand,  the  empirical  manifold  of  the  Law 
of  Ground,  in  so  far  as  it  is  entirely  empirical  is  reduci- 
ble to  the  one  common  term  of  temporal  succession.  This 
common  element,  empirically  considered,  contains  no  princi- 
pie  of  determination,  however,  other  than  psychological 
necessity.  The  peculiar  necessities  of  the  three  different 
spheres  of  Causality,  Space  and  Time  and  logical  relations, 
are  only  explainable  as  expressions  of  one  metalogical  or 
ontological  principle  of  determination,  which  is  the  Subject- 
Object  relation  itself.  This  identification  of  the  metalogical 
Sufficient  Reason  with  temporal  succession  is  only  explaina- 
ble  in  the  light  of  the  general  metaphysical  system  of  which 
Schopenhauer's  peculiar  doctrine  of  S.  R.  is  an  element. 
The  phenomenal  objectif\cation  of  the  Ontological  Will, 
which  is  at  the  same  time  the  origin  of  the  world  and  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  world,  is  in  its  first  stage  temporal  succes- 
sion, and  this  temporal  succession  is  the  logical  prius  of  the 
particular  necessities  of  the  different  spheres  of  the  mani- 
festation of  this  primal  law.  The  phenomenal  objectifica- 
tion  is  Sufficient  Reason  as  a  metalogical  principle.  This 
much  of  Schopenhauer's  Ontology  is  sufficient  to  make  clear 
the  relative  place  of  the  logical  Law  of  Ground  and  of  the 
causal  axiom  in  his  theory. 

In  that  Sufficient  Reason  is  at  the  same  time  the  principle 
of  the  phenomenal  objectification  and  of  the  knowledge  of 
that  objectified  phenomena;  knowledge  and  reality  are  the 
same  process.  ''  Die  Welt  ist  meine  Vorstellung,"  "  Object 
fur  das  Subject  sein  und  unsere  Vorstellungen  sein  ist  das- 
selbe."  Causality  is  an  a  priori,  not  simply  regulative,  but 
•constitutive  Sufficient  Reason  of  the  existence  of  objective 
reality.     **  Materie  ist  durch  und  durch  Causalit'at." 

§53.  Now  Kant  had  likewise  found  in  the  causal  axiom, 
the  Sufficient  Reason  of  phenomenal  reality— the  law  of  the 
binding  together  of  phenomena,  but  as  an  axiom  of  knowl- 
edge the  causal  principle  was  conceived  to  be  partly  a  logi- 
cal postulate.  The  logical  deduction  of  the  categories  aims 
to  show  that  though   transcendental,  they  are  yet  logical  in 


/ 


.« 


49 

their  essence.  This  reflective  theory  of  the  movement  of 
Sufficient  Reason  in  the  temporal  flow  of  phenomena,  de- 
scribed by  Kant  in  the  ''Deduction,"  was  constructed, 
Schopenhauer  maintains,  ''  um  innerhalb  der  Transcendental 
Logik  zu  bleiben."^  This  logical  standpoint  Schopenhauer 
abandons. 2  Since  objective  reality  and  the  knowledge  of  that 
reality  are  the  same,  a  unitary  movement  of  Sufficient  Reason 
in  the  causal  principle,  the  reflective  logical  element  in  the 
principle  of  ground  is  discarded  as  superfluous,  and  in  its  place 
is  substituted  a  unitary  non-reflective  function  called  the  *'  In- 
tellectuelle  Anschauung."  This  Intellectual  Intuition  then, 
as  an  inuncdiate  perception  of  the  relation  of  ground  and 
consequence  in  reality,  independent  of  reflection  and  logical 
thought,  is  a  necessar}^  mysticism  growing  out  of  the  identi- 
fication of  the  reality  of  objective  existence  and  its  relations 
with  the  necessity  of  the  knowledge  of  that  reality.  As  a 
consequence,  the  whole  Kantian  attempt  to  show  (in  the 
psychological  Subjective  Deduction)  how  the  postulate  of 
logical  thought  necessity  may  combine  with  sensational 
reality  in  a  transcendental  material  judgment  is  vain.  In 
the  Intuition  we  have  reality  and  intellectual  necessity  at 
the  same  moment.^ 

§  54.  This  identification  of  the  modal  categories  of  reality 
and  necessity  which  Kant  had  distinguished  so  carefully,  is 
typical  for  the  whole  standpoint,  and  follows  logically  from 

'Appendix,  "  Welt  als  Willc,  &c."  Haendel,  p.  36. 

'^  Konig-,  {Entwichelung  dcs  Causal-Problems,'^  Vol.  II,  page  32),  makes  the 
criticism  that  the  general  principle  of  Ground  is  developed  merely  as  a  formula  for  the 
whole  spliere  of  ideas.  Since  a  Deduction  of  the  law  fails  both  for  the  general  law 
itself  and  for  the  particular  cases  of  the  law,  it  can  be  looked  upon  only  as  an  empty 
formula  for  a  number  of  incommensurable  relations.  This  must  necessarily  follow  if 
the  essence  of  the  principle,  its  logical  element,  is  discarded. 

'  ''Die  Welt  als  Wille,  &c."  Haendel,  p,  17.  "  Daher  auch  erregt  die  anschau- 
liche  Welt,  so  lange  mann  bei  ihr  bleiben  steht,  im  Betrachter  weder  Skrupel  noch 
Zweifel  ;  es  geibt  hier  weder  Irrthum  noch  Wahrheit  ;  Diese  sind  ins  Gebiet  des 
Abstracten,  der  Reflexion  gebannt.  Hier  aber  liegt  fUr  Sinne  und  Verstand  die  Welt 
offen  dar,  giebt  sich  mit  naiver  Wahrheit  fur  das  was  sie  ist,  fiir  anschauliche  Vor- 
stellung,  welche  gesetzmassig  am  Bande  der  Causalitat  sich  entwickelt." 


50 

his  metaphysics.'  It  is  the  complete  ne-ation  of  the  criti- 
cal standpoint,  which  has  as  its  chief  problem  the  deter- 
mination  of  the  relation  of  the  logical  to  the  material  elements 
in  the  Law  of  Ground.  The  critical  balance  of  Kant,  is 
overthrown  in  favor  of  a  metaphysical  dogmatism. 

§55.  Schopenhauer's  doctrine  of  Sufficient  Reason  was 
intended  to  make  clear  in  a  technical  and  scientific  wav,  what 
his  entire  philosophical  attitude  conlinually  implied,  namely 
the  insignificance  of  logical  refiection  in  our  knowledge  pro- 
cesses.  Theoretical  logical  necessity,  he  is  continually 
announcing,  is  but  the  appearance,  the  shine  of  knowledge. 
The  direct  intuition  in  which  no  contradictions  appear  is  the 
only  real  source  of  truth.  Aside  from  the  general  weakness 
of  a  position  such  as  this,  which  invalidates  the  entire  logical 
concatenation  of  his  own  system,  we  are  interested  chiefiy  in 
understanding  what,  from  the  standpoint  of  development, 
results  for  our  special  problem  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  by 
such  a  negation  of  the  logical  consciousness. 

§56.  If  we  keep  in  mind  the  general  trend  of  our  study — 
that  Post  Leibnitzian  thinking  disi)lays  an  interaction  and 
often  struggle  between  the  logical  and  metai)hysical  motives, 
both  prominent  in  Leibnitz's  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason, 
and  secondly  that  the  Crusius-Kantian  movement  represents 
a  development  of  the  metai)hysical  motive,  it  will  be  clear 
that  Schopenhauer's  modification  of  the  Kantian  philosophy 
is  the  extremest  possible  putting  of  the  anti-logical  tendency. 
The  logical  consciousness  is  reduced  to  a  minimum  of  range 
and  value.  Logic  is  only  formal  and,  in  that  it  deals  only 
with  nominalistic  concepts,  mere  shadows  of  the  real,  it  has 
only  symbolic  value.  Not  only  is  the  essential  logical  nature 
of  the  Law  of  Ground  denied — but  logic  ceases  to  be  even  an 
essential  side  of  the  Law. 

^  Thus  in  his  "  K'ritik  der  Kantischen  Philosop/iie,''  "  Alle  diese  Umstande  (die 
Begnffe  Moglichkeit,  Ummoglichkeit)  daher  stammen  keineswegs  aus  einer  Geistes 
Kraft  des  Verstandes,  sondern  entstehen  durch  den  Conflict  des  Abstracten  Erkennens 
mitdem  Intuitiven  wie  man  gleich  sehen  wird  " — and  again  on  p.  161,  "  Demgemass 
ist  alles  Wirklich  zugleich  ein  Notwendiges  und  in  der  Realitat  zwischen  Wirklichkeit 
und  Notwendigkeit  ist  kein  Unterschied  und  eben  so  keiner  zwischen  Wirklichkeit 
und  Moglichkeit." 


V 


/ 


51 

§  57.  This  very  radicalism  of  Schopenhauer's  doctrine 
makes  it  of  particular  value  in  the  present  study — as  a  crucial 
and  turning  point — so  to  speak,  in  the  development  of  the 
principle  under  consideration.  For  what  is  the  Law  of 
Ground,  if  not  a  knowledge  principle — and  what  is  a  knowl- 
edge principle  if  not  in  some  wa}^  connected  with  the  logical 
consciousness,  and  its  reflective  processes.  Again  the  notion 
of  Sufficient  Reason  is  in  contradiction  with  the  idea  of 
knowledge  in  a  unitary  Intuition.  The  relation  of  ground 
and  consequence,  implies  the  analytical  severance  of  two 
distinct  elements,  the  ground  and  the  consequence.  This 
analytical  abstraction  must  necessarily  result  in  thinking  the 
ground  and  consequence  conceptuall3^  As  Kant  says,  ''Die 
einfachen  Elemente  der  Anschauung  liegen  vollig  ausserhalb 
der  Sinnlichkeit  und  sind  conceptual."^  The  concept  of 
Intellectual  Intuition  and  the  relation  of  ground  and  con- 
sequence are  therefore  absolutely  contradictory  ideas,  for 
the  latter  relation  is  analytical  as  succeeding  thinking  fully 
demonstrated,  while  intuition  describes  a  movement  of  con- 
sciousness unitar}'  and  synthetic,  in  which  no  differentiation 
of  parts  arise.  Kant  then  did  well  in  remaining  ''innerhalb 
der  Transcendental  Logic"- — that  is  in  extending  his  concept 
of  the  logical  consciousness  to  include  Sufficient  Reason — 
and  it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  wonder  that  he  was  almost 
scornful  in  his  condemnation  of  Eberhardt's  doctrine  of  ''In- 
tellectuelle  Anschauung"  as  destructive  of  all  critical  think- 
ing. Schopenhauer's  negation  of  the  logical  consciousness, 
and  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason  as  a  process  of  metalog- 
ical  Intuition  is  a  mysticism  which  may  be  very  properly 
called  the  reciiictio  ad  absiirduvi  of  the  anti-logical,  metaphy- 
sical tendency  in  the  history  of  the  Principle. 

^  Cf.  Note,  page  41. 

'Appendix  "  Welt  ah  Wille  6^  Vorstellung,'"  p.  36. 


52 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Conflict  Between  the    METAi'Hv>ic  al   and  Logi- 
cal Doctrines  of  Suifk  ifm-  Reason. 

^58.  Scht^pcnhauer's  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason 
received  the  preccelin-  full  treatment  in  view  of  ttie  tact  that 
in  several  important  respects  it  stands  as  typical  for  the 
whole  movement  from  Leibnitz  on,  and  secondly  because  it 
contains  the  best  expressicjn  of  the  contradiction  out  of 
which  the  modern  logical  theory  arose  as  necessary  conse- 
quence. 

§59.    Looking:  backward,  it  may   not  be  too  much  to  say 
that  this  classical  formulation  stands  as  a  rcdiictio  ad  absur- 
dum    of    the    principle    which    characterized    the    preceding 
movement.      For  Schopenhauer's  doctrine  is  the  most  con- 
sistent answer  to  the  Leibnitzian  demand  that  a  Principle  of 
Sufficient  Reason  be  found  for  empirical  reality  that  should 
lie  outside  the  sphere  of  logic.      Leibnitz  had  in  mind  a  Law 
of    reality    itself — and    identified     Sufficient     Reason     with 
causation,  but  there  was  also  implicit  in  the  idea  of  Sufficient 
Reason,  a  notion  of  a  new  principle  of  knoiclcdgc  of  empirical 
reality  other  than  the  logic  of  concepts.       But  if  we  assume 
a  causal  law  in  reality  independent  of  our  knowledge, — our 
knowledge  of  that  causal   relation  can   come  about  alone  in 
one  of  two  ways,  either  through  logical  thought,  or  through 
immediate  intuition  of  these  causal  relations.     This  contra- 
diction   made    itself    felt    immediately   in    the   successors   of 
Leibnitz.      Already  Wolff  champions  the  logical  formulation 
of  the  law,  while  Crusius   leans   toward  a  view,    according 
to  which  our  knowledge  of  causal  and  will  relations  is  of  an 
unlogical  nature,  although  he  does  not  come  to  a  clear  form- 
ulation of  the  nature  of  that  knowledge.     Kant  again  made 
a  synthesis  of  the  two  sides,   in  that  instead  of  the  simple 
**  sufficiency  "  of  Leibnitz   he  demanded   a  determinism  for 


■^ 

V 


/ 


53 

our  knowledge  of  empirical  reality,  but  not  the  determinism 
of  formal  logic.  In  its  place  enters  a  doctrine  of  a  Transcen- 
dental Logic  in  which  the  intuitional  and  conceptual  elements 
are  critically  balanced.  This  temporary  balance  was  neces- 
sarily disturbed  by  the  succeeding  movements,  the  Hegelian 
movement  falling  back  upon  the  formal  side  of  Kant's  Tran- 
scendental Logic,  Schopenhauer  taking  the  intuitional  side 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  logical  conceptual  element.  In  that 
the  Sufficient  Reason  of  empirical  reality  is  given  directly 
and  immediately  in  the  sense  intuition,  is  the  Leibnitzian 
demand  first  consistently  answered— the  demand  that  the 
principle  of  empirical  knowledge  lie  outside  the  conceptual, 

logical  sphere. 

^60.  But  in  that  this  stage  is  reached,  is  the  impossibility 
of  such  an  answer  evident.  For  the  doctrine  of  an  imme- 
diate intuition  of  the  empirical  Sufficient  Reason,  once 
clearly  formulated,  proves  itself  to  be  in  direct  contradiction 
to  the  idea  of  the  relation  of  ground  and  consequence— as 
Kant  already  protested  against  Eberhardt,  and  as  fully 
pointed  out  in  the  case  of  Schopenhauer.  This  contradictio 
in  adjecto  in  the  conception  of  the  intellectual  intuition  of 
the  ground  and  consequence  is  the  reduetio  ad  absurdiim, 
which  shows  us  the  impossibility  of  a  relation  of  ground  and 
consequence  other  than  logical. 

^61.  After  Schopenhauer  a  marked  change  is  evident 
in  tlie  attitude  of  thought  to  our  principle,  a  change  which 
appears  as  a  historically  and  logically  necessary  consequence 
of  the  failure  of  the  first  movement.  This  change  is  in  the 
direction  of  a  logical  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason,  not 
logical  in  the  sense  that  it  is  subordinated  to  the  Principles 
of'^Identity  and  Contradiction,  as  with  Wolf,  but  rather  in 
that  it  becomes  the  basal  principle  of  logic  to  which  the  laws 
of  Identity  and  Contradiction  are  subordinated.  In  this 
movement  two  stages  may  be  distinguished:  i.  The  struggle 
between  metaphysics  and  logic,  as  represented  in  Herbart 
and  Trendelenburg,  and  2)  the  completed  formulation  of  the 
law  as  basal  principle  of  logic  in  Sigwart  and  Wundt.     The 


\ 


54 

most  obvious  motive  to  such  a  return  to  a  logical  view  of 
Sufficient  Reason,  is  the  recognition  of  the  impossibility  of 
any  other  than  a  logical  conception  of  the  relation  of  ground 
and  consequence.  An  unusually  strong  motive  is  the  appear- 
ance of  a  distinct  trend  toward  scientihc  method  in  Philoso- 
phy. The  logical  possibility  of  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  and  the  possibility  of  a  unity  of  the  "  thing  "  among 
its  manv  attributes, — these  are  the  metaphvsical  problems 
which  most  concern  science. 

HERB  ART. 

^62.  It  becomes  then  the  |)r()blcm  of  a  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, in  touch  with  the  new  scientific  consciousness,  to 
subject  the  fundamental  concepts  of  science  to  critical  analy- 
sis. We  are  led  herewith  to  a  new  attitude  and  a  new 
'method  in  philoso|>hy — w  hicli  makes  itself  immediately  felt 
in  the  new  turn  given  to  the  formulation  of  Sufficient 
Reason  in  Herbart's  thinking.  This  may  be  described 
briefly  as  a  conflict  between  a  logical  and  metaphvsical  form- 
ulation, in  so  far  as  the  Law  of  Ground  is  concerned. 
Protesting  against  a  certain  formalism  and  abstraction  in 
the  Kantians,  according  to  which  general  a  priori  laws  of 
empirical  thought,  a  sort  of  mechanism,  are  set  over  against 
the  concrete  activity  of  mind  upon  concrete  problems  of 
scientihc  thought,  Herbart  sets  himself  immediatelv  to  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  ground  and  conse- 
quence as  such.  The  MctJiodologic  or  the  first  part  of  his 
Metaphysik\  is  concerned  entirely  with  the  Principle  of 
*' Sufficient  Reason,"  the  third  chapter  of  which  he  beo-ins 
with  this  sentence:  ''  Die  erste  aller  Fragen  fiir  den  welcher 
durch  Speculation  sein  Wissen  erweitern  woUte  war  unstrei- 
tig  die;  wie  folgt  Eins  aus  dcm  Anderen  ?  Was  ist  ein 
Grund?      Was  heisst  eine  Folire?  " 

§63.  He  finds,  in  answering  these  questions,  that  formal 
logic  has  failed  entirely  to  show  how  the  relation  of  ground 
and  consequence  is  thinkable,  since  it  contains  the  contra- 
diction of  assuming  that  its  concepts  are  definitely  determined 


N 


55 

quantities,   and    yet   demands  in  the  Law   of  Ground  that 
the  consequence  be  something  new,  else  it  does  not  consti- 
tute a  widening  of  knowledge.     But  if  the  consequence  is 
new    it  was  not  contained  in   the  definitely  known  concept, 
called  the  ground.     Thus  the  principle  of  ground  must  as  a 
method  of  widening  our  knowledge  lie  outside  the  formal 
lo-ic  of  definite  concepts.'     This,  however,  is  nothing  more 
thtn  the  Kantians  had  discovered,  but  their  substitutions  in 
place  of  the  failure  of  formal  logic  are  equally  unsatisfactory 
to    Herbart.     First   of   all,  the    Law    of   Ground  was  sup- 
posed to  be   explained   when  a  certain   number  of  a  priori 
subjective  forms  were  shown  to  be  the  logical  pre-supposi- 
tions  of  all  experience,  but  this  is  a   subjectif^cation   of    the 
problem  which  Herbart  will  not  allow,  and  likewise  an  un- 
warranted generalization,   for  the  problem    of  ground  and 
consequence  is  always  the  question  of  definite  empirical  rela- 
tions   of  the  possibility  of  one  element  being  thought  the 
ground  of  the  other,  and  any  attempt  to  deduce  these  formal 
relations  in  experience  from  a  priori  knowledge  forms  leads 
to  blindness  in   regard  to  the  problems  of  each  particular 
relation  =     The  problem  of  knowledge  is  not  how  according 
to  the  nature  of  our  knowledge  functions,  it  is  possible  for 
us  iiberhaupt  to  know,  but  rather  is  the  world  of  experience 
given  us  in  its  complex  of  form  and  content,   and  this  we 
must  so  reconstruct  as  to  make  it  rational.'  „      ,        , 

§64  Equally  true  is  it  that  the  "  Intellectuelle  Anschau- 
un-"  fails  to  answer  the  problem.  Immediate  intuition 
cannot  give  the  evidence  which  belongs  to  relations  of 
crround  and  consequence.  To  be  sure  it  gives  us  ideas  and 
relations,  which  we  must  hold  fast  to  although  logic 
threatens  to  abandon  them,  but  we  cannot  fall  back  upon  the 
sloth  of  "diesen  Schwarmern"  who  will  not  think  the  prob- 
lem through  but  claim  that  the  relation  of  ground  and 
consequence  is  given  in  the  "Anschauung.-     The  contra- 

'Herbarfs  CompleU  Works,  edited  by  Kehrbach.     Vol.  VIII,  ?l66,  p.  15. 

'  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  32.  ,    ,  „  o 

.  Comflete  Works.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  18.     '  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII.  ?l85.  p.  38. 


L^ 


56 

dictions  which  arise  in  the  immediate  intuition  must  be  put 
aside  by  logical  thought.^  Historically,  Herbart  had  in  mind 
in  these  introductory  criticisms,  besides  Kant  himself,  the 
logical  rationalism  of  Hegel  and  the  Intuition  theory  of 
Schelling's  Natural  Philosophy,  but  if  Schopenhauer  had 
been  a  ruling  thinker  of  the  time,  his  intuitional  view  of  the 
relation  of  ground  and  consequence  would  not  have  escaped. 

§65.  The  failure  of  all  these  thinkers,  he  continues,  has 
been  that  they  have  invariably  assumed  the  possibility  of  the 
relation  of  ground  and  consequence;  and  this  has  been  the 
root  of  so  many  profitless  generalizations.-  An  analytical 
study  of  the  logical  possibility  of  the  relation  itself  is  the 
first  step,  and  from  this  the  conclusion  is  reached  that  the 
principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  first  of  all  a  subjective 
postulate  arising  out  of  a  contradiction  between  the  intuition 
and  our  concepts  already  developed— a  postulate  which  de- 
mands the  removal  oi  these  contradictions  and  may  be 
expressed  as  a  demand  for  a  contradictionless  whole  of  expe- 
.rience.2  The  possibility  of  the  satisfaction  of  this  impulse, 
of  the  solution  of  these  contradictions,  lies  in  the  possibility 
of  so  extending  the  meaning  of  the  general  concept  as  to 
make  a  new  ground,  a  new  complex  of  ideas  in  which  the 
contradictory  element  of  experience  may  be  seen  to  be  con- 
tained. This  concept  of  the  solution  of  the  contradiction 
between  ground  and  consequence,  by  widening  the  ground, 
is  further  developed  in  his  so-called  *'  Methode  der  Bezieh- 
ungen"  of  which  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  get  some  notion. 

§66.  While  Herbart,  recognizing  the  contradiction  in- 
volved in  the  subsumption  of  the  Law  of  Ground  under 
the  norms  of  formal  logic,  denies  the  sufficiency  of  the  latter, 
he  yet  recognizes  in  the  demand  of  Sufficient  Reason  for 
a    contradictionless    whole    of    experience,     an    essentially 

^Complete  Works ^  ^192,  p.  46. 

^Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII.  p.  414.-"  Meine  Untersuchung,"  he  savs  in  his 
reply  to  the  criticism  of  Prof.  Brandis.  "  stellt  aber  die  ganze  Moglichkeit  dass  es 
tiberhaupt  Cirunde  geben  konne,  von  vorn  herein  in  Zweiiel ;  und  hier  wenn  irgendwo, 
ist,  meines  Erachtens,  Zweifel  der  Weisheit  Anfang,'' 

^Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  23. 


^ 


/ 


#  • 


•  • 


"V  » 


f': 


»     • 


1     • 


<  I 


57 

logical  nature.  The  problem  of  his  analysis  is  so  to  investi- 
gate  the  possibilities  of  logical  relations,  so  to  widen  the 
notion  of  logical  ground,  one  might  say,  as  to  make  the 
relation  of  ground  and  consequence  a  logical  possibility. 
Since  the  contradiction  arises  out  of  the  relation  of  the  con- 
crete particular  to  the  abstract  concept,  the  first  problem  is 
that  of  the  relation  of  the  two.  This  is,  according  to  his 
theory,  purely  nominalistic.  General  concepts  are  but 
short-hand  registers  for  the  real,  by  means  of  which  the 
*'  manifold  "  of  the  given  may  be  grasped  in  a  unity. ^  Formal 
logic  can,  therefore,  of  necessity  give  only  schematic  rela- 
tions, in  which  the  manifold  of  the  real  cannot  be  contained 
without  contradictions.  But  in  that  these  concepts  are  only 
symbols  they  may  be  changed  to  suit  the  requirements  of 
the  particulars  with  which  they  are  in  contradiction.  The 
laws  of  formal  logic  remain  their  only  governing  principles, 
under  the  more  primal  postulate  which  includes  all  of  expe- 
rience, for  the  material  side  has  as  its  problem  the  continu- 
ous widening  of  the  general  concepts  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  particular  experiences,  in  order  that  a  logic  of 
concepts  may  be  a  logic  of  reality. 

§67.  Instead  of  the  principle  of  Subalternation  w^hich 
determines  this  relation  in  formal  logic,  in  the  broader  view 
of  logical  necessity  which  this  doctrine  of  Sufficient  Reason 
compels,  a  new  principle  must  be  sought.  This,  the  ''Meth- 
ode der  Beziehungen,"  consists  in  so  widening  the  concept 
by  adding  elements,  that  the  consequence  may  be  seen  to  be 
necessarily  contained  in  it.^  This  proceeds  by  chance  sug- 
gestions, ''Zufallige  Ansichten,"  that  is  of  new  possibilities 
which  lie  hidden  in  space  and  number  relations  which  serve 

*  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  15. 

'  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  §§  174,  175.  Especially  the  example  of  the  solu- 
tion of  the  Pythagorean  problem  of  the  right-angled  triangle  (by  dropping  a  perpendic- 
ular upon  the  hypotheneuse.  by  means  of  which  the  concept  of  the  right-angled 
triangle  together  with  the  added  concepts  developed  by  the  dropping  of  the  perpendic- 
ular, form  the  whole  ground  of  the  consequence  that  all  the  angles  equal  two  right 
angles)  shows  the  nature  of  the  process,  and  is  in  itself  proof  against  the  Schopen- 
hauerean  theory  that  ground  and  consequence  are  here  found  by  means  of  Anschauung^ 


58 

as  a  means  of  helpincr  on  the  deduction.  **  Diese  Kunst- 
griffe  enweitern  den  Grund  aiis  welchem  die  Folge  hervor- 
gehen  soll.^  The  conclusion,  which  is  the  matter  of  great 
importance  for  an  historical  study,  is  simply  this:  that  the 
ground  is  never  one  definite  concept  but  a  changing  com- 
plex of  concepts,  a  system,  the  dependence  of  one'  concept 
from  another  being  the  necessity  out  of  which  the  norms  of 
formal  logic  get  their  material.  The  Law  of  Ground  is  there- 
fore an  immanental  law  of  all  conceptual  interdependence, 
and  as  such  the  presupposition  of  the  analytical  laws  of  Iden- 
tity and  Contradiction. 

§  68.  Wlien  this  theory  of  Sufficient  Reason  is  con- 
trasted with  the  Kantian  point  of  view  the  most  striking  dif- 
ference is  found  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  while  the  latter,  to 
escape  the  contradictions  and  insufficiencies  of  formal  logic, 
is  driven  to  a  metaphysical  formulation,  in  which  the  logical 
nature  of  the  law  is  recognized  only  as  a  transcendental  ele- 
ment, with  Herbart  these  same  difficulties  of  formal  logic 
are  overcome  without  deserting  for  a  moment  the  logical 
point  of  view,  but  merely  by  broadening  the  notion  of  logical 
dependence  and  by  the  introduction  of  the  concept  of  a 
"  widened  frround."^  This  difference  is  likewise  reflected  in 
Herbart's  energetic  protest  against  the  point  of  view  which 
assigns  to  the  judgment  of  ground  and  consequence  a  syn- 
thetic rather  than  analytic  nature.  The  analytic  of  formal 
logic  is  continued  in  the  analytic  by  means  of  which  the 
immanental  relations  in  the  larger  ground  are  discovered, 
and  by  means  of  which  the  contradiction  is  solved,  for  this 
analytical  process  must  occur  as  often  as  our  attempt  to 
fasten  a  relation  in  thought  develops  contradictions.  In  his 
second  letter  in  reply  to  Brandis'  criticisms"*  he  points  out 
that  it  is  not  the  judgment  of  relations  of  ground  and  .con- 
sequence that  is  synthetic,  but  only  the  immanental  depen- 
dence or  Zusammenhang  which  underlies  this  judgment.  The 
judgment  of  ground  and  consequence  is  itself  analytical. 

>  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VI 11,  p.  25. 

*  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  36. 

•  Complete  Works,  Vol.  VII,  Appendix  ;  also  p.  45,  §IQI. 


\ 


/ 


59 

§  69.  The  second  division  of  our  exposition  is  the  applica- 
tion of  this  theory  of  Sufficient  Reason  to  reality  itself,  or  a 
consideration  of  the  third  ''  Forderung  einer  Methodologie," 
that  it  shall  be  able  to  return  from  its  reflexions  again  to  the 
Given. ^  That  is,  the  ''  Methode  der  Beziehungen  "  must  be 
applied  in  general  to  a  consideration  of  those  chief  forms  in 
which  phenomena  manifest  their  **  togetherness,"  to  the 
typical  complexes  of  the  "  Schein,"  to  see  by  the  abolishing 
of  contradictions  "vie  viel  Hindeutung  auf  Sein  "  there  is.^ 
Now  the  source  of  these  particular  contradictions,  according 
to  the  basal  metaphysical  principle  of  Herbart's  system,  is 
the  necessary  contradiction  between  the  unity  and  indepen- 
dence of  real  being,  and  the  relativity  of  empirical  phe- 
nomena. The  fundamental  concepts  of  this  latter  phenomenal 
sphere  are  necessarily  full  of  intuitional  sense  elements,  or 
better  expressed,  psychological  in  their  immediate  origin. 
It  is  the  working  over  of  these  concepts,  in  order  to  free 
them  from  the  contradictions  that  arise  out  of  these  con- 
ditions of  their  origin,  that  constitutes  the  main  problem  of 
philosophy.  It  is  therefore  not  in  immediate  real  relations 
but  in  \\\^  possible  to  thought  that  final  reality  is  to  be  found. 

§70.  We  are  not  so  much  interested  in  the  '^  working 
over"  of  the  particular  concepts  of  Causality,  Substance, 
and  Inherence,  as  in  the  role  which  the  Law  of  Ground  plays 
in  this  connection.  The  characteristic  feature  of  Herbart's 
concept  of  logical  thinking,  and  of  the  function  of  Sufficient 
Reason  is  that  these  are  not  confined  to  particular  logical 
schemata  such  as  the  syllogism  or  the  hypothetical  form,  but 
the  consequence  is  conceived  as  springing  rather  from  an 
indefinite  and  complex  system  of  concepts,  the  "widened 
ground."  This  complex  and  phenomenalistic  relation  of 
ground  and  consequence,  corresponds  then  to  the  complex 
relativity  of  empirical  phenomena,  as  we  have  it  expressed 
in  the  empirical  concepts  of  Causation,  Inhere;ice,  &c.  The 
.analytical  working  over  of  these  latter  concepts,  until  they 

^Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  14. 

^  Complete  Works,  Hartenstein,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  44. 


6o 

express  the  lo<^ical  relation  of  ground  and  consequence  with- 
out contradictions,  is  therefore  the  goal  of  Sufificient  Rea- 
son. The  relation  of  ground  and  consequence  shall  like- 
wise make  the  relations  in  the  real  understandable  that  all 
real  connections  may  be  seen  to  depend  upon  the  logical 
relations  of  ground  and  consequence. 

*  g  71.  In  the  working  out  of  this  new  and  modified  ration- 
alism  it  is  seen  that  the  concepts  of  Inherence  and  Causation 
inevitably  carry  thought  from  the  appearance  to  the  meta- 
physical ground  of  the  appearance.'  Especially  the  causal 
concept,  as  the  result  of  this  analytical  determination  by  the 
"Methode  der  Beziehungen,"  loses  the  empirical  signifi- 
cance which  distinguishes  it  from  the  logical  law  of  gnnind. 
Causation  as  a  phenomenon  of  succession  belongs  entirely  to 
the  sphere  of  appearance.  Real  happening  and  the  neces- 
sity involved  in  it  are  conceivable  only  as  metaphysically  de- 
termined.^  The  application  of  the  logical  law  of  ground  and 
consequence  to  experience  led  Herbart  to  the  belief  that  all 
thinking  concerning  phenomenal  relations,  according  to  its 
principle,  must  consist  in  metaphysical  constructions.  The- 
**  Sufificient"  Reason  of  the  real  is  again  identified  witb 
causality.  The  idea  that  the  empirical  as  well  as  the  meta- 
physical concept  of  causality  might  be  an  expression  of  the 
law  of  ground  did  not  find  a  place  in  his  thinking.  The  ideal 
of  a  contradictionless  whole  of  thought  as  his  ideal  ol  Suf- 
ficient Reason  led  him  into  ontology. 

%'J2.  Professor  Brandis  in  his  critique  properly  asks,  can 
we  consider  that,  after  this  method  of  Relations  has  done 
away  with  all  contradictions,  we  have  actually  come  '*Uber 
die  ratio  cognoscendi  hinaus?"  Can  it  be  said  that  by  reliev- 
ing the  concept  of  causality  of  its  contradictions  we  have 
gotten  to  the  real  inner  nature  of  a  particular  causal  relation? 
Is  it  not  rather  a  *' Machtspruch  des  Denkens"  that  changes. 
the  logical  result  into  a  knowledge  of  the  real  as  it  is?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,   Herbart  anticipates  this  criticism   when   he 

^Complete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  243. 

*Cf.  Kfinig,  Ent7viikelung  des  Causal  Problems^  Vol.  II,  p.  1 18. 


\ 


y 


61 

says  *'unsere  ganze  Abweichung  von  der  Erfahrung  besteht 
in  notivendigen  Erganzungen  dessen   was   sie  uns  nicht  voU- 
standiof  zeig-t."^     And  indeed  it  does  seem  that  if  a  contra- 
dictionless  whole  of  experience  be  the  ideal  of  Sufificient  Rea- 
son— that  if  the  nature  of  the  principle  is  that  of  a  logical 
postulate,  then  starting  with  experience  as  a  basis,  whatever 
the  exigencies  of  the  logical  working  over  of  the  contradic- 
tions involved   in   that  experience  develops,  must  represent 
the  real.      But  this  involves  a  tremendous  assumption  which 
no  theory  of  knowledge  has  a  right  to  make,  viz.  :  that  the 
logical  consciousness  can  penetrate  to  the  essence  of  reality. 
Although   Herbart  had  clearly  before  him  the  two  distinct 
problems  of  the  logical  nature  of  the  postulate  of  ground 
and  consequence  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  ques- 
tion of  the  application  of  that  logical  postulate  to  reality  as 
given  in  experience,  yet  he  did  not  rise  to  the  point  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  an  empirical  and  a  metaphysical  appli- 
cation of  the  Law  of  Ground,  nor  did  he  appreciate  fully 
the  critical  nature  of  the  problem  of  the  limits  of  these  two 
extensions.     This  remained  for  a  later  and  more  developed 
stage  of  logical  reflection — as  represented  by  the  logicians 
Sigwart  and  Wundt. 

§73.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  struggle  between  a  logi- 
cal and  a  metaphysical  view  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  which 
characterizes  the  Herbartian  thinking,  becomes  prominent, 
namely,  in  the  two  problems,  on  the  one  hand  of  the  nature 
of  the  law  and  secondly  the  extent  of  its  application  to  re- 
ality. Arisen  as  a  problem  of  methodology,  defined  as  a  sub- 
jective postulate  demanding  a  contradictionless  whole  of  ex- 
perience, it  is  further  developed  into  a  complete  logical  and 
analytic  method  which,  without  deserting  the  logical  stand- 
point, extends  in  a  critical  fashion  the  concepts  cf  logic  to 
meet  the  demands  of  the  material  elements,  for  which  formal 
logic  is  not  sufificient.  In  the  application  of  this  principle 
to  the  problems  of  reality  Herbart  fell  back  into  the  ration- 
alistic and  ontological  point  of  view,  to  which  his  theory  was 

»  Cotiiplete  Works,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  399. 


62 

near  akin.  For  in  following  out  this  postulate  of  a  con- 
tradictionless  whole  of  thou^^ht,  he  was  led  in  the  way  of 
WolfT,  that  is  into  the  world  of  the  -possible"  and  not  of  the 
real,  for  the  former  alone  can  be  disclosed  by  the  pruiciple 
of  Contradiction  unaided  by  the  limitation  of  the  dchnite 
laws  of  experience.  It  remained  for  a  follower  ol  IIerl)art, 
Drobisch,  to  develop  more  dehnitely  tlie  h)-ical  nature  of 
the  Law  of  Ground,  and  for  later  tliinkers,  also  mtlu- 
enced  by  him,  Sigwart  and  Wundt,  to  determine  more 
critically  the  application  of  the  law  to  reality.  It  should 
not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  llerbart  -rasped  the  one 
historically  important  idea,  namely,  that  the  Law  of 
Ground  is'essentially  a  logical  principle,  with  applications  to 
the  real,  and  not  a  metaphysical  law  of  real  relations.  Per- 
fectly  consistently  then  he  distinguishes  in  the  last  chapter 
of  his  Encvcloplidia,  an  indehnite  number  of  grounds,  in  sig- 
nificant contrast  to  the  fourfold  division  of  whicli  Schopen- 
hauer made  so  much. 

§74.   With   the   Herbartian   School    properly  closes   the 
history  of  Ratio  Sufficiens  as  a  metaphysical  i)rinciple  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term.      Now   begins  a  process  of  disinte- 
gration  which  makes  it  somewhat  difficult  to  follow  the  fate 
of  our  principle.      It   would    be   almost    impossible,    in   the 
midst  of  this  eclecticism  that  follows,  to  give  a  satisfactory 
account  of  it  were  it  not  for  a  phenomenon  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  this  eclecticism,  but  of  immense  importance  to 
the   progress  of   modern   thought — namely,    the   rise  of  the 
modern   ''Erkentniss-thcorctischc  Logik:^     In   this  movement 
Logic  comes  to  a  consciousness  of  itself  and  its  problems — 
of  its  close  relations  to  psychology,  on  the  one  side,  and  to 
metaphysics  on  the  other.     And  what  is  still  more  important 
to  us,  this  change  arises  in  close  connecticm  with  the  prin- 
ciple  of   Ground.     The    Law   of   Ground  as  a  metaphysical 
principle  in  the  hands  of  Leibnitz,  resisted  the  logical  form- 
ulations attempted  by  Wolfl  and   his  school,  which  made  it 
subordinate   to   the  principle  of  Contradiction,   and  passed 
over  into  the   metaphysical   formulations  of   Kant  and    the 


\ 


/ 


63 

post-Kantians.  But  it  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  formu- 
lations of  both  Schopenhauer  and  Herbart  there  was  a 
psychological  element  as  well.  In  Schopenhauer's  ideal- 
ism this  was  the  principle  of  dependence  among  ideas 
in  the  purely  temporal  association  flow  of  ideas.  Herbart's 
realism,  on  the  other  hand,  has  its  psychological  side  in  the 
struggle  among  ideas  to  preserve  their  individuality  in  their 
mutual  interference  or  ''Heinmuugr  The  psychological  repro- 
duction in  these  ideas  is  simply  a  picture  in  consciousness  of 
a  like  condition  among  metaphysical  reals.  But  the  ques- 
tion, how  logic  shall  be  related  to  this  principle,  has  re- 
mained in  the  back-ground.  Wolff  had  looked  upon  Suf- 
ficient Reason  as  equally  ontological  and  logical,  but  its 
subordination  to  the  Law  of  Contradiction  hid  the  problem 
contained  in  it.  Besides,  according  to  his  thinking,  the 
foundations  of  logic  lie  in  Ontology  as  well  as  Psychology.^- 
With  the  absolute  distinction  between  form  and  content  in 
Kant's  critical  philosophy,  logic  became  a  purely  formal 
discipline;  consequently  Sufficient  Reason  as  the  supreme 
law  of  synthetical  material  judgments  found  no  place  in  hi^ 
formal  logic.  So  also  Schopenhauer  recognizes  logic  as 
only  formal,  and  only  as  one  of  the  four  forms  of  grounding 

which  involves  him,  as  we  have  already  seen,  in  a  puzzling 

contradiction.  Krug  and  Kiesewetter  continue  the  formal 
tradition  of  Kant,  and,  influenced  by  them,  Sir  William 
Hamilton  developed  a  formal  logic  upon  the  same  lines. 
Under  the  special  influence  of  Krug,  the  Law  of  Ground 
and  Causation  are  both  subordinated  to  the  more  general 
terms  of  ''Conditioning"  and  "  Conditioned."  ^  In  his 
"Discussions,"  however,  a  later  work,  the  Law  of  Ground 
is  treated  merely  as  a  corollary  of  the  three-fold  normative 
law  of  logic,  Identity,  Contradiction,  Excluded  Middle. ^ 
And  again  (page  603  of  the  same  work)  he  demands  that: 
"The  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  should  be  excluded  from 
logic.      For,  inasmuch  as  the  principle  is  not  material,  it  is 

'  ''Loo-ica  Discursus  Praeliminaris,''  §88. 

"^Lo^ic,  p.  62,  63.  ^Discussions,  pp.  160-603. 


64 


only  a  derivative  of  the  three  formal  laws,  and  inasmuch  as 
it  is  material,  it  coincides  with  the  principle  of  causation  and 
is  extra  logical."  In  its  essence  it  is  not  normative  but  ma- 
terial. Likew^ise  Herbart'  and  his  school  aim  at  a  complete 
diremption  of  formal  logic  from  metaphysics  and  psy- 
chology, especially  Moritz  Wilhelm  Drobisch.- 

§75.  Against  this  formal  tendency  in  Logic,  as  well  as 
against  the  subordination  of  logic  to  metaphysics  arises  the 
*'Erkentniss-theoretische  Logik"  with  the  problem  of 
following  logical  forms  into  their  psychological  and  meta- 
physical sources.  As  especial  originator  of  this  movement 
we  may  consider  Trendelenburg,  whose  '' Logischc  Uutcr- 
stichuyigen^'  appeared  in  the  first  edition  in  1840.  But 
although  this  work  arose  as  a  distinct  protest  against  the 
formal  logic,  (whose  neglect  of  the  problems  of  ''content," 
he  claims  would  only  be  be  allowable  "  wenn  die  Formen  des 
menschlichen  Denkens  Uber  die  Wechsel — Beziehung  in  der 
sonst  alle  Dinge  gefangen  sind,  erhoben  waren"^);  yet  it  is 
equally  in  opposition  to  the  existent  forms  of  the  metaphysics 
of  the  day  as  represented  in  Hegel,  Herbart  and  Schopen- 
hauer/ As  might  be  expected  from  the  nature  of  its  ante- 
cedents, this  w^ork  does  actually  have  as  its  main  problem  a 
satisfactory  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason.  For  it  is  in 
this  principle  that  the  boundary  line  between  logic,  psy- 
chology and  metaphysics  lies.  Formal  logic  cannot  deal 
with  it  alone,  because  of  its  material  element.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  material  element  be  taken  cognisance  of,  it 
leads  us  directly  into  psychology  and  metaphysics. 

§76.  It  is  at  this  point  that  Trendelenburg's  critique  of 
preceding  systems  aims  to  show  wherein  these  metaphysi- 
cal formulations  of  Sufficient  Reason  are  untenable.  His 
own  formulations  will  include,  then,  only  such  material  ele- 
nients — metaphysics  and  psychology — as  the  proper  under- 

*  Einleitung  in  die  P kilos. ,  §  34. 

'  Introduction  to  Third  Edition  of  his  Logik. 

^ Logische  Untersuchun^en,  3d  Edition  (1870),  p.  17. 

*  Introduction  to  Second  Edition,  61,  4. 


/ 


65 

Standing  of  the  process  of  knowledge  itself  demands. 
Whether  his  metaphysical  doctrine  of  ground  be  tenable  is 
another  question.  The  problem  itself  is  a  new  one,  and  an 
important  step  in  modern  thinking:  Sufficient  Reason  is  the 
basal  problem  of  knowledge — therefore  of  logic;  it  cannot 
be  treated  alone  formally,  for  it  contains  material  elements; 
just  these  material  elements,  therefore,  must  be  included  in 
our  logic. 

%'j6.  The  problem  of  the  relation  of  ground  and  conse- 
quence becomes  the  central  point  in  the  Logische  Untersuch- 
iingcn.  Critically  antagonistic  to  Hegel's  identification  of 
logic  with  ontology  which,  though  at  first  sight  it  seems  to 
offer  what  formal  logic  fails  to  give,  really  implies  that 
thinking  is  without  real  presuppositions  and  of  its  own 
necessity  develops,*  he  is  equally  critical  toward  Herbart's 
nominalism,  seeing  no  means  by  which  the  *'  Method  of  Re- 
lations" can  be  more  than  a  formal  principle,  since  there  is 
no  reason  \vdiy  on  the  basis  of  this  theory  the  number  of  ele- 
ments in  the  'Mvidened"  ground  should  correspond  to  the 
plurality  of  metaphysical  reals,  how  the  solution  of  a  logical 
contradiction  can  be  the  solution  of  a  real  discrepancy.' 
Likewise,  in  opposition  to  Schopenhauer,  he  attempts  to 
find  a  fundamental  place  for  the  teleological  element  in 
Sufficient  Reason,  as  a  constitutive  element  in  each  of  its 
mechanical  categories,  space,  time  and  causation.^ 

%77.  Although  Trendelenburg's  entire  work  is  in  a  sense 
an  exposition  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  the  requirements  of  our 
historical  study,  as  well  as  the  limitations  of  space,  allow  of 
but  merely  a  passing  glance.  His  view  of  logic  as  a  material 
as  well  as  formal  science  leads  to  a  doctrine  of  Sufficient 
Reason  w^hich  assigns  to  it  likewise  a  material  character. 
The  real  necessity  of  the  ratio  essendi  and  the  merely  formal 
necessity  of  logical  ground  and  consequence  have  been  either 
absolutely   separated  or  fully  identified.     Neither  of  these 

"^Logische  Untersuckungen,  Vol.  I.,  p.  38. 

*  Logische  Uniersuchungen,  Vol.  II.,  p.  397,  399. 

^Logische  Untersuckungen^  Introduction  to  II,  and  III.  Editions, 


66 

extremes  ot  Schopenhauer  or  Hegel  is  necessary.  As 
knowledge  includes  both  thought  and  being,  so  this  basal 
principle  of  knowledge  is  equally  a  real  and  a  thought 
principle.  The  solution  of  this  contradiction  between  the 
Law  of  Ground  as  a  logical  principle,  and  as  real  necessity, 
is  accomplished  by  a  reduction  of  both  to  a  common  lower 
metaphysical  term  which  is  yet  higher  than  either.^  This 
third  metaphysical  term  rejuvenates  the  Aristotelean  theory 
of  one  primal  activity  or  movement,  of  which  thought  and  being 
are  elements.  Applied  to  the  concept  of  ground,  the  theory 
seeks  to  show  that  in  the  complete  ground  elements  of 
thought  and  reality  unite  to  produce  the  consequence. 

§78.  While  such  a  metaphysical  hypothesis  of  a  "  Grund- 
thatigkeit,*"  including  both  thought  and  being,  is  an  impos- 
sible  solution  from  a  logical  standpoint,  we  must  carefully 
distinguish  this  hypothesis  from  the  historical  motive  which 
brought  it  into  being,  and  from  the  logical  working  over  of 
the  formal  categories  which  followed  as  its  proof. ^  First  of 
all  the  motive  which  led  to  this  metaphysical  theory  was 
that  of  finding  a  basis  for  a  theory  of  logic  which  would 
include  material  elements.  It  was  essentially  a  protest 
against  a  narrow  formal  view  of  logical  categories,  and 
claiming  material  necessity  for  the  Law  of  Ground,  it 
sought  a  widening  of  the  concept  of  logic.  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  a  metaphysical  theory  was  close  at  hand. 
And,  secondly,  the  working  out  oi  the  logical  categories, 
especially  those  of  modality,  developed  a  phenomenology  of 
the  logical  consciousness^  which  enriched  and  deepened  our 
logical  insight,  a  debt  which  Sigwart  fully  recognizes.  In 
the  development  of  this  phenomenology  two  striking  charac- 
teristics of  the  logical  consciousness  and  of  its  fundamental 
principle.  Sufficient  Reason,  are  brought  to  light.  First, 
in  that  the  processes  of  judgment,  of  knowledge,  are  con- 
ceived as  a  wahres  Geschehen,^  3,  happening  in  which  real  and 

^ Logische  Untersuchungen,  \o\.  I.,  p.  135. 

^  Logische  Untersuchungen,  Vol.  II.,  p.  140. 

*  Logische  Untersiichungen,  Vol.  II.,  p.  178  and  p.  312. 


N 


.  . 


67 

knowledge  elements  are  united,  the  causal  interdependence 
of  these  processes  becomes  a  fundamental  concept.  The 
concept  of  an  immanental  logical  causality  of  our  knowledge 
processes,  as  the  last  term  of  S.  R.,  becomes  prominent.  And, 
secondly,  this  wahres  Geschehen,  this  immanental  logic,  is 
conceived  to  be  teleological  in  its  nature.  This  is  particu- 
larly marked  in  Trendelenburg's  theory  of  geometrical 
reasoning.^ 

The  necessity  which  emerges  then  from  this  teleological 
movement  of  the  Immanental  Logic — is  itself  not  a  category 
of  merely  formal  logic — not  merely  thought  necessity  in  the 
one-sided  use  of  that  term,  but  a  necessity  both  formal  and 
material, 2  as  the  later  logicians  formulate  it,  both  logical  and 
psychological. 

^  Logische  Untersuchungen,  Vol.  II,,  p.  190,  191. 
* Logische  Untersuchungen,  Vol.  II.,  p.  183. 


68 


\ 


CH AIRIER  \  1. 

SuFFiciKNT  Reason  a>   niv:  Ba^al  Principle  of 

MoDKKN   Lot;ic. 

§79.  Before  passir.,L:  t(^  8i,ia:\vart  we  must  notice  the  con- 
tributions of  several  otiier  men,  to  the  modern  lo.^fical  move- 
ment, but  onlv  in  so  far  as  they  hav^  ritributed  elements, 
afterward  taken  up  into  the  modern  doctrines  of  -  Sutlficient 

Reason," for   we   have   to  do    with  tlie   historv  of   modern 

logic  onlv  in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  fate  of  our  problem. 

I.  First  of  all — Drobisch '—between  whom  imkI  Tren- 
delenburi;,  in  the  dilf-jreat  editi  >ns  of  their  works,  a  battle 
raged  concerning'  the  |)rovince  of  loi;ic,  tlie  former  always 
maintainini^Mhe  formal  side,  according:  to  Ikrbartian  prin- 
ciples. Though  logic  is  formal  in  its  nature,  Drobisch  also 
maintains  that  the  Law  of  Ground  is  the  basal  princii>le  of 
all  logical  relations,  in  striking  contrast  to  the  preceding 
formal  logic  which  excluded  it  as  a  material  principle.  Her- 
bart,  he  savs,  was  the  first  to  recoirnize  the  true  nature  of 
logical  ground  and  conse(]uence,  for  he  showed  that  ground 
could  never  be  unitary  and  simple  and  thus  the  full  nature 
of  the  relation  of  ground  and  consequence  exhausted  in  the 
syllogism.  Formal  logic  is  as  little  satisfied  with  the  syl- 
logism as  an  expression  of  grounding  as  is  material  thinking.^ 

For  the  relation  between  ground  and  consequence  in  logic 
is  not  that  which  the  syllogism  at  first  sight  shows:  that 
from  a  simple,  already  distinct  unitary  concept  a  new  con- 
cept is  deduced.  That  involves  a  contradiction,  as  Herbart 
showed.  The  ground  is  equally  in  formal  logic  t/ie  entire 
inttrdepiiidencc  of  all  the  concepts  expressed  in  tJic  syllogism 
upon  each  other.  Thus  the  relation  of  ground  and  con- 
sequence is  synthetical  and  analytical  at  the  same  time, 
analvtical  in  so  far  as  subject  to  the  norms  of  Identity  and 
Contradiction.      But  being  simply  the  law  of  thr  dependence 

^  Logik — jrd  Edition.      Introduction,  ^  Logik. — jrd  Edition.     §39. 


69 

of  all  concepts  upon  each  other,  it  excludes  the  metaphysical 
axiom  of  causation  from  consideration  as  an  expression  of  the 
Law  of  Ground  in  the  logical  sense. ^  The  Law  of  Ground 
is  then  the  fundamental  principle  of  logic  to  which  the  prin- 
ciples of  Identity  and  Contradiction  are  subordinate.  It  ex- 
presses itself  in  all  relations  among  ideas,  either  immediately 
in  the  logical  relations  of  concepts,  or  mediately  in  the 
formal  relation  of  ground  and  consequence  in  the  syllogism, 
especially  in  the  hypothetical  judgment. 

Implied  or  expressed  Sufficient  Reason  is  the  basal  law 
of  all  logical  relations.^ 

2.  Thus  is  rinally  reached  a  clear  statement  of  what  Her- 
bart had  implied  and  what  Trendelenburg  had  meant  by  the 
idea  of  the  co-existence  of  the  concei)tual  and  material  ele- 
ments in  the  ground.  That  is  the  concept  of  an  immanental 
loo-ic  as  over  against  the  clearly  expressed  formal  relations 
of  identity,  is  fully  attained.  A  wider  extension  of  the  prin- 
later  in  Wundt. 

g8o.  Another  i)rinciple  of  importance,  not  fully  attained 
ciple,  as  well  as  a  more  definite  formulation  is  to  be  found 
in  Herbart  and  Trendelenburg,  is  finally  clearly  determined 
by  Lotze.  The  problem  of  the  nature  of  the  causal  concept  as 
an  aspect  of  the  general  Law  of  Ground  was  throughout  the 
history  of  the  principle  the  most  important  and  yet  the  most 
difficult  to  determine.  All  those  who  answered  it  in  the  meta- 
physical spirit  looked  upon  the  causal  judgment  as  synthetic 
and  material,  without  reference  to  the  logical  relation  of 
ground  and  consequence.  Herbart  and  Trendelenburg,  in 
bringing  the  whole  principle  of  ground  again  into  the  logical 
sphere,  are  yet  not  able  to  determine  the  proper  relation  of 
the  logical  element  of  ground  in  the  causal  concept. 

A  distinction  between  the  logical  postulate,  and  the 
empirical  elements,  both  equally  present  in  the  causal  judg- 
ment in  germ,  exists,  however,  as  a  necessary  consequence  of 
the  consideration  of  the  causal  relation  as  an  application  of 
the  logical   postulate  of    Sufficient    Reason.       This  distinc- 

"^  Logik.— 3rd  Edition.     §39-     P-  44-  ""  Logik.—jrd  Edition.     %^-}. 


70 

tion  is  first  clearly  set  forth  by  Lotze,  who  goes  out  from  the 
difficulties  in  the  Ilcrbartian  doctrine  of  this  relation;  for  he 
considered  that  between  reals  with  no  quality  other  than  that 
of  simple  -  position,"  no  relation  of  cause  and  effect  can  be 
thought.      With  Herbart  and  Trendelenburg  he  is  in  accord, 
in  the  view  that  the  Ratio  Sufficicns  consists  in  the  whole 
complex  of  data,  and  their  relations  from  which  the  character 
of  the   supervening  effect   is  deducible  and  in  this   sense  he 
defines  the  Aristotelian  doctrine  of  Sum/At?  and  ivepyela  as  the 
first    expression   of    Sufficient   Reason.       But  he    maintains 
further,  that  in  the  Postulate  of  Sufficient  Reason  with  which 
we  come  to   phenomena  we   must  distinguish   between   the 
general  logical  postulate  of  a  mressary  relation  of  ground  and 
consequence  in   the  causal   concept,  and   the  empirical  suffi- 
ciencyoi  a  given  cause,  in  bringing  about  a  given  effect.    This 
distinction,  one  of  the  most  weighty  points  of  his  thinking,  is 
treated  fully  in  his  metaphysics  and  logic,  but  for  a  concise 
expression,  the  following  quotation  from  the  '-  Grundzugc  der 
MetapJiysik''  will  suffice: — *'An  die  Stelle  des  falschen  Be- 
Sfriffs    der    schaffenden    muss    der    der    wirkenden    Ursache 
gesetzt  werden.      Und  dieser  richtige   Begriff  des  Causal — 
Nexus  enthlilt  zwei  verschmolzene  Principien,  das  der  Ratio 
Sufficiens  und  das  der  Causa  Efficiens."' 

The  latter  expresses  the  logical  postulate  of  necessity, 
the  former  the  empirical  sufficiencv  included  in  the  causal 
concept.  Here  at  last  is  reached  a  clear  doctrine  of  the 
relation  of  Sufficient  Reason  to  causation,  from  the  lack  of 
which  the  wh(jle  history  of  the  problem  since  Leibnitz  had 
suffered.  A  more  complete  development  of  the  distinction 
is  to  be  found  in  Wundt's  doctrine  which  follows  in  a  later 
chapter. 

SIGWART. 

§8 1.    With  Sigivart  is  the  place  of  our  Pt^inciple  in  Modern 
Logic  definitely  sectired.       Following  upon  the  earlier  work  of 

Trendelenburg  and  Uberweg,  as  he  himself  remarks  in  the 

*  Lotze,  "  GrundzUge  der  Metaphysik"  p.  39. 


\ 


/ 


7» 

introduction  to  his  Logik,^  he  is  enabled  to  .^o^"!^*^  S/^" 
cient  Reason  critically,  to  show  its  place  in  logic  and  its 
relations  on  the  one  hand  to  psychology  and  on  the  other  to 
n^etaphysik.  i.  As  a  positive  result  of  Trendelenburg  s  work 
Sufficient  Reason  receives  an  important  place  in  his  logic 
together  with  all  its  unlogical  implications,  and  as  a  negative 
refult  of  the  same  work,  the  line  between  the  psychological 
Ind  metaphysical  is  closely  drawn.  As  the  basal  law  of  log  c 
its  formulation  is  as  follows:  "Jedes  Urtheil  behauptet 
dnen  logischen  Grund  .u  haben,  der  es  fUr  ^en  Denkenden 

J.         „^i,t  Mit  dem    Grunde  ist  die    folge 

notvvendig    macht.    .    .    •    ^^''^  u^'"      ^     ,    ,        „j 

gesetzt  mit  der  Folge  ist  der  Grund  aufgehoben. 

This  however  is  a  law  which,  though  universal  in  logic, 
is  comparatively  limited  in  its  application,  for  it  can  apply 
only  toVdgments  whose  .rounds  are  kno.n,  ^hat  is  concept 
ually  determined :-"  denn  streng  genommen  ein  log.scher 
"nind  den  wir  nicht  kennen  ist  ein  Widerspruch  denn  er 
wird  erst  ein  logischer  Grund  dadurch  dass  wir  ihn  erkennen 

1  T>ns  primal  logical  lau,  extends  then  in  mo  d^recUons  in  o 
sphe'res  where  the  grounds  are  not  all  logically,  conceptual  y 
determined-in  the  form  of  two  postulates,  closely  connected 
but  "t  at  bottom  different,  a.  The  first  is  the  psycholog- 
ical postulate :  that  no  judgment  is  given  without  psycl^olog^cal 
Troundfor  its  certainty^not  necessity),  b.  The  second  is  the 
^ir^  axiom:  that  nothing  happens  in  the  objective  world 
v'hout  a  sufficient  cause.  It  is  important  to  determine  the 
relation  of  logical  Sufficient  Reason  to  these  two  postulates 

and  of  each  to  the  other.  . 

^8      a.   Evidently  the  psychological  postulate   is    much 

n.o;e  general  than  the  logical  for  it  applies  eq-ll);^ ^^'fe 
ments  whose  grounds  are  not  known,  and  to  those  whose 
g;u:ds  are    known;    while   the    logical,  strctly  g>eaking 
governs  only  the  lattter.     Subjective  ^-^^^M^^^ 
lewustsein,"  is  the  most  general  term  for  Sufficient  Reason, 

^Cf.  Logik,  1873.     Introduction. 
"^Logik,  1873-     §32. 
*Cf.  also  Leibnitz,  §21. 


in  that  all  logical  necessity  is  also  subjectively  certain,  but 
there  is  much  more  subjectively  certain  that  is  not  logically 
necessary.  (Thus  the  confusion  of  *' Sufificient  Reason'* 
with  psychological  necessity  as  we  have  seen  it  exemplified 
in  Augustine,  Hume,  and  to  an  extent  in  vSchopenhaucr.) 
But  to  the  j)henomenology  of  this  psychological  '*  Geltung's 
Bewustsein  "  Sigwart  denies  meta|)hysical  W(jrth — its  phen- 
omena must  be  studied  as  throwing  light  upon  the  logical 
consciousness,  by  developing  the  psvchological  laws  with 
which  logical  judgments  arc  related.  In  this  phenomenology 
of  grounding  the  marks  of  Trendelenburg  are  plainly  to  be 
seen — especially  in  the  chapter  on  the  Modal  Categories  that 
follows.  But  into  the  detail  of  this  movement  of  grounding 
we  cannot  enter.  While  the  phcnomenologv  of  Grounding 
cannot  be  taken  as  of  mctai)hvsical  value,  in  Trcndelenbunr's 
sense,  it  allows  us  to  postulate  back  of  logical  relations  of 
ground  and  conse(|uencc,  as  brought  to  consciousness  in  the 
formal  judgment,  an  immanental  logic  of  ideas  which  encom- 
passes the  whole  psychological  complex  which  lies  back  of  the 
judgment.  So  that  Sufficient  Reason  is  extended  beyond 
formal  logic  to  the  place  of  a  general  principle  of  thinking. 
This  is  well  expressed  by  Beno  Erdmann,  who,  in  general, 
repeats  the  same  view  as  Sigwart,  when  he  says:  '*Sofern 
das  Geltung's  Bewustsein  aus  der  Gewissheit  und  Denknot- 
wendigkeit  besteht  ist  es  durch  beide  bedingt,  durch  beide 
zureichend  begriindet."* 

§83.  b.  The  second  problem  is  thai  of  the  extension  of  Suffi- 
cient Reason  outwardly,  as  a  principle  of  causal  judgments. 
This  is  expressed  in  the  statement  that  causation  is  not  a 
peculiar  form  of  Sufficient  Reason,  but  only  ^  postulate  oi  the 
validity  of  the  Principle  in  an  external  metaphysical  sphere. 
Only  in  so  far,  ti.erefore,  as  a  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
allows  itself  to  be  expressed  in  the  form  of  a  hypothetical 
judgment,  can  it  be  said  to  stand  under  the  logical  Law  of 
Ground.     (Here  also  Erdmann    takes    practically   the    same 

^Erdmann,  Logii,     ^46. 


\         / 

•  •      • 


I       » 


4        « 


*        « 


73 

position,*)  Causation  is  not  an  independent  manifestation  of 
Sufficient  Reason  for  the  sphere  of  objective  truth,  in 
the  Schopenhauerian  sense,  for  that  includes  in  it  the  pre- 
supposition that  causation  is  the  Sufficient  Reason  of  exist- 
e?tce  of  that  objective  Reality,  which  leads  to  a  further  meta- 
physical construction  of  Sufficient  Reason  in  an  idealistic 
direction,  as  the  principle  which  necessitates  the  objectifica- 
tion  ot  subjective  ideas. ^  It  is  psychologically  certain  that 
an  individual  is  necessitated  to  assign  his  sense  affections  to 
an  outer  cause,  but  it  does  not  follow,  that  this  cause  actually 
exists  either  in  space  or  in  thought.  Besides,  that  I  am  not 
conscious  of  producing  these  causal  relations  does  not  pre- 
clude the  possibility  of  their  being  of  purely  subjective 
origin,  therefore  does  not  prove  that  causation  is  an  objective 
form  of  "Sufficient  Reason."  The  consequence  is  that  we 
can  not  consider  causality  an  axiom  of  reality  but  only  a 
postulate  of  knowledge.  As  such  a  postulate,  its  relation  to 
logical  ground  and  consequence  is  that  of  any  other  a  priori 
axiom,  in  the  sense  that  the  existence  of  this  principle  or  of 
some  particular  fact  based  upon  it  is  used  as  a  ground  for 
some  logical  expression  of  thought.  Thus  the  necessity  ex- 
pressed by  the  hypothetical  judgment,  which  is  really  the 
onlv  formal  expression  of  the  Law  of  Ground  in  logic,  is 
based  upon  this  axiom  which  is  in  every  hypothetical  judg- 
ment either  expressed  or  implied.^  In  so  far  as  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  is  expressed  in  the  hypothetical  form  of 
judgment,  it  is  taken  up  into  the  sphere  of  the  necessity  of 
formal  logic. 

§  84.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  distinguish  between  the 
three  kinds  of  grounds  developed  b}^  Sigwart.  There  is  first, 
— the  logical  ground  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  in  the 
hypothetical  relation  of  two  concepts  which  says  that  if  one 
is  true,  the  other  is;  if  the  consequence  is  proven  to  be  false, 
the  ground  is  false  also.     Only  in   this  sense  is  the  law  of 

*  Erdmann,  Logik.     ^409. 
«  Vol.  I,     ^48.     p.  367. 
'Sigwart,  Logik.     Vol.  I.     p.  211. 


74 

ground  an  independent  law  of  pure  logic,  and  as  such  it  is 
more  of  the  nature  ot  a  postulate  than  of  a  normative  law 
In  the   second   place,   that  is  gound  of  a  judgment   which 
psychologically  brings  it  about ;  therefore  the  entire  complex 
of  consciousness  out  of  which  a   judgment   grows       This 
includes  partly,  merely  psychological  association  of  ideas 
partly  conscious  comparison  according  to  the  logical  laws  of 
Identity   and  Contradiction;  partly  the  «  prion  postulates 
especially  causation,  which  is  both  logical  and  psychological 

in  its  necessity. 

The  third   source  of  ground   is  that  to  which  reality  is 
attached  and  which,  according  to  the  principle  of  Sufficient 
Reason,  is  considered  the  condition  of  the  existence  of  another 
element  of  external  reality,  called  the  effect.     A  considera- 
tion of  the  mutual  relations  ol   these  three  grounds  to  each 
other  would  show  that  the  only  direct  logical  expression  of 
Sufficient  Reason  is  the  hypothetical  form  of  judgment,  in 
that   it  stands  under  the   law   of  ground    analytically— the 
consequence  is  expressly  contained  in  the  ground.'    All  other 
forms  of  judgment  are  under  the  law  of  ground  in  logical 
immamnce.     That  is,  the  predicate  is  contained  in  the  sub- 
ject     This  immanence  of  the  predicate  in  the  subject  leads 
back,  however,  to  a  sphere  where  the  logical  necessity  is  not 
clearly  expressed,  where  the  full  ground  is  not  known,  and 
the  grounds  thus  become  partly  psychological.     Here  the 
Law  of  Ground  can  only  be  expressed  as  a  postulate  of  the 
universality  of  this  logical  immanence  among  our  ideas.     On 
the   other  hand,    pushing  out   from   the   formal   relation  of 
ground  and  consequence  into  external  reality  we  postulate 
the  existence  of  what  we  merely  logically  express  as  ground 
and  consequence.      In  so  doing  we  have  fallen  back  upon  the 
causal  axiom.'     Thus  equally  in  both  the  inner  and  outer 
direction  in  consciousness  and  in  what  is  out  of  conscious- 
ness, is  extended,  through  postulates,  the  force  of  the  Law  of 
Ground. 

•Sigwart,  •' Biitrage  zur  Uhrt  vom  hypothetische  UrtheiU.     (Tlibingen,  1871). 
'  Erdmann,  Logit,  pp.  3°'  and  4I9- 


.  * 


^^ 


75 

WUNDT. 

§  85.  By  far  the  most  important  modern  statement  of  Suf- 
ficient Reason  is  to  be  found  in  Professor  Wundt's  Logik, 
from  the  second  edition  of  which  (1893),  the  following  resum6 
is  taken.  This  is  true  not  only  because  of  the  extraordinary 
fulness  with  which  the  problem  is  treated,  but  equally  because 
•of  the  definiteness  of  the  place  assigned  it  in  logic,  and  the 
critical  acuteness  with  which  the  relations  of  the  logical  to 
its  psychological  and  metaphysical  applications  are  deter- 
mined. 

It  was   the  failure  of   Leibnitz,   according  to   Professor 
AVundt,  that  in  his  conception  of  the  principle,  it  was  con- 
fined  to  empirical  truth,  to  the  psychological  sphere  of  con- 
fused   ideas,   thus  obscuring  at  the  very  beginning  of    the 
■history  the  essentially  logical  nature  of  the  term  ground— and 
thus  making  it  identical  with  the  causal  axiom,  with  which 
it  has  only  a  distant  relation.^     Kant,  despite  his  severing  of 
the   Law  of  Ground  from  formal  logic,  fell  into  a  certain 
rationalism,  in  that  identifying  the  principle  with  causation, 
he  deduces  both  from  the  hypothetical  judgment.^     Schop- 
enhauer makes  the  mistake  of  putting  the  weight  upon  the 
empirical  application  of  the  law  not  upon  its  original  logical 
nature.     His  method   is  of  the   same  order  as  that  which 
would  seek  to  make   Identity  in  the  intuition  and  Identity 
in  concepts  two  distinct  roots.^     His  four  fold  principle  with 
its  ''Intellectuelle  Anschauung"  must  be  looked  upon  as  a 
metaphysical  rationalism ;  nothing  more  than  a  remainder  of 
the  Wolffian  logic  of  reality.     Finally  any  attempt,  such  as 
that  of   Hamilton,  and   later  of  Riehl,*  to   bring   Sufficient 
Reason  into  logic  by  subordinating  it  to  the  law  of  Identity 
must  fail,  for  Sufficient  Reason  expresses  just  those  relations 
in  thought  which  do  not  come  under  the  rubric  of  Identity, 
relations  of  dependence,  equivalence,  by  reason  of  which  the 

1  Wundt,  Logik,  2nd  Edition,  i6g^.   Vol.  /,  /.  569. 
«  Wundt,  Logik,  2nd  Edition,  iSgj,   Vol.  I,  p.  5<P' 
^ {The  same),  p.  S7 1. 
*  Philosoph.  Criticismus,  Vol.  2,  p.  2jo. 


76 


.worth    of    the    consequence    depends    upon    the    worth    of 
the    ground.*        Thus,     ''if    the    angles    of    a    right    angled, 
triangle  are  equal,  so  are  the  sides  equal,"  expresses,  in  no^ 
sense,  a  relation  of  identity  between  the  ground  and  the  con- 
sequence, but  a  relation   purely  of  dependence  based  upon 
the  nature  of  the  reality  about  which  the  relation  of  depend- 
ence is  expressed.      Besides,  if  the  law  were  e([ual  to  identity,. 
it  must  read  equally   "  with  the  consequence  is  given   the 
ground  as  well  as  with  the  ground  is  given  the  consequence  "' 
— a  manifest  asburdity. 

§86.  Thus  the  Law  of  Ground  is  the  most  general  laiv  of  ail  log- 
ical thought,  a  postulate  underlying  all  thinking  as  ''  Satz  d«^r 
Abhaniriirkcit  unseren  Denkacte  von  cinander."*  As  such  it 
extends  through  the  entire  '*  Schlusslehre"  and  is  manifested 
in  all  relations  of  concepts  whether  syllogistically  expressed 
or  not.  This  formulation  striven  for  by  Merbart  and  ex- 
pressed by  Drobisch,^  is  now  recognized  by  W'undt,  but 
with  the  addition  that  its  consequences  are  further  carried 
out.^  As  the  general  law  of  the  dependence  ol  all  logical 
thought,  Sufhcient  Reason  is  not  a  normative  principle,  to 
be  applied  in  carrving  out  actual  judgments.  "Denn  es 
giebt  lediglich  dem  Postulat,  dass  der  Inhalt  unsers  Denkens 
nach  Griinden  und  F()liJ:en  sich  ordnen  lasse,  einen  Auschiick 
und  es  weist  daraufhin  dass  der  Schluss  eine  solche  Ordnung 
herstelle.  Aber  die  Kriterien  bleiben  unbestimmt.  Sehen 
wir  uns  nun  an  den  einzelnen  Beispiclen  des  Schliessens  um, 
so  zeigt  es  sich  dass  bald  Identitat,  bald  Subsumption  den 

^  Wundt.  Logik,  2nd  Edition,  iSgj,   Vol.  I,  p.  jyo. 

*VolI,ps73' 

•  Cf .  Par.  79  (above). 

*(This  is  a  step  further  than  Sigwart,  who  still  somewhat  under  the  influence  of 
the  formal  analytical  nature  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  confined  it  formally  to  the  hypo- 
thetical assigning  the  affirmative  and  negative  judgments  to  Identity  and  Contradiction. 
In  the  syllogism,  the  first  and  second  figures  were  shown  to  be  subject  to  the  principle 
of  Sufficient  Reason.  P'or  a  complete  and  detailed  carrying  out  of  this  principle,  that 
the  "  Abhangigkeit's  Verhaltniss  "  expressed  in  Sufficient  Reason  is  the  basal  law  of 
all  logical  forms — compare  the  work  of  Dr.  Franz  Erhardt,  Der  Satz  vom  Grunde  als 
Princip  des  Schliessens y'  Halle,  1891, 


77 


Grund  darstellt."*  Because  of  its  not  being  a  normative 
law,  it  will  be  remembered,  Hamilton  demands  that  Sufficient 
Reason  be  excluded  from  logic,  for  as  a  material  principle, 
it  coincides  with  Causation.'  On  the  contrary,  it  is  just 
because  it  is  not  a  definite  normative  law,  that  with  Wundt, 
it  becomes  the  basal  principle  of  logic,  with  the  normative 
laws  as  presui)positions.  As  such  a  general  law  of  concepts, 
the  Wundtian  formulation  is  as  follows:  Wenn  verschie- 
denen  Urtheile  durch  Begriffe  die  Ihnen  gemeinsam  ange- 
horen  in  Verhaltniss  zu  einander  gesetzt  sind,  so  stehen 
auch  die  nicht  gemeinsamen  Begriffe  solchen  Urtheilen  in 
einem  Verhaltniss  welches  in  einem  neuen  Urtheil  seinen 
Ausdruck  findet."* 

Here  then  is  a  strictly  formal  expression  of  Sufficient 
Reason  which  fills  the  demand  of  Herbart,  which  was  that 
the  law  of  ground  be  formulated  so  as  to  show  how  new 
judgments  can  arise.  It  is  a  more  precise  expression  of  what 
Herbart  meant  by  widening  the  concept  of  the  ground,  that 
a  new  consequence  might  arise.  It  expresses  simply  the 
relation  of  dependence  of  concepts  upon  each  other,  dependent 
not  upon  the  normative  laws,  but  upon  the  relative  worth  of 
the  concepts  for  each  other.  Thus  the  formula  j/ =  rt:;ir -|- ^ 
stands  under  the  law  of  ground,  for  the  numerical  value  oi  y 
depends  upon  the  numerical  value  of  x. 

§87.  But  such  a  general  law  of  ground  of  the  dependence 
of  concepts  logically  upon  each  other,  according  to  their 
logical  worth  for  each  other,  in  that  it  is  a  material  principle, 
depends  for  its  v^alue  upon  its  application  to  experience.  To 
what  extent  then  may  there  be  different  applications  of  this 
general  law  according  to  the  material  constitution  of  the 
ideas  which  it  shall  hold  in  its  grasp  ?  Schopenhauer  had 
made  the  mistake  of  so  putting  the  weight  upon  the  applica- 
tion, that  he  developed  absolute  metaphysical  distinctions 
between  its  four  roots,  thus  reducing  the  logical  form  to  the 
sphere  of  a  phenomenal  application ;  for  the  universal  logical 
character,  he  was  thus  compelled  to  substitute  an  ontological 


*p.  317. 


«Cf.  \  74  above. 


»Vol.  I,  p.  317. 


/8 

which  he  called  metalogical.^  In  contradiction  to  this  Wundt 
maintains:  -  Der  Satz  braucht  die  Anschauung  zu  seiner 
Anwendung,  aber  er  ist  selbst  nicht  Gegenstand  der  An- 
schauung.  Daher  kann  man  ihn  nicht  durch  Hinweiss  auf 
den  Zusammenhang  der  Erfahrung  erklliren  ;  viel  mehr  ist  er  es 
erst,  durch  den  unser  Denken  Zusammenhang  hervorbringt."* 

§  88.  What  then  are  the  particular  a[)i)lications  of  this 
logical  law  to  phenomena  ?  They  are  of  two  kinds,  i.  The 
formal  in  Mathematics.  2.  The  Material  as  expressed  in 
the  different  forms  of  the  causal  axioms.  The  more  general 
law  which  governs  all  its  applications  is  that  in  order  to  find 
expression  in  the  data  of  the  ''Anschauung,"  it  submits 
itself  to  the  material  nature  of  the  ''Anschauung,"  upon 
this  depends  the  extent  and  validity  of  the  application.^ 

L  The  Mathematieal  Application.  Just  as  this  Law  of 
Ground  is  the  undeducible  a  priori  axiom  of  all  thought  in 
general,  so  are  the  special  axioms  of  mathematics  the  applica- 
tion of  the  Law  of  Ground  to  the  concepts  of  space  and  time. 
The  further  application  of  these  axioms  to  a  hypothetical 
substratum  of  the  natural  phenomena  gives  the  physical 
axioms.'*  *'Alle  Mathematische  Operationen  grunden  sich 
also  auf  Axiome  welche  Anwendungen  des  Satzes  vom  Grunde 
auf  mathematische  Fundamental-Begriffe  darstellen/"^  This 
championing  of  the  logical  character  of  mathematical  knowl- 
edge against  the  Schopenhauerian  doctrine  of  the  "An- 
schauung," rests  upon  Wundt's  doctrine  of  the  mathematical 
relations  as  the  most  abstract  of  concepts  (which  is  fully 
developed  in  the  second  volume  of  his  Logic,  chapter  II, 
when  he  abandons  the  Kantian  theory  of  a  transcendental 
pure  intuition)  as  so  abstract  that  they  are,  one  might  say, 
transparent  and  therefore  allow^  of  an  application  of  the  logi- 
cal axioms,  more  especially  of  Ground,  without  any  indeter- 
minable remainder.  Schopenhauer's  doctrine  rests  upon  a 
false  distinction  between  "Anschauung"  and  "  Begriff " 
growing  out  of  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  pure  "  Anschau- 


\ 


»Cf.  §51. 
^Logik,  p.  571. 


*Logik,  p.  571. 


*  Logik,  p.  561. 
^Logik,  p.  577. 


79 

ung."  The  only  difference  between  the  logic  of  mathemati- 
cal,  and  non-mathematical  concepts,  is  that  in  the  former  the 
"Anschauung"  is  used  in  a  special  symbolical  way  for  the- 
proof  of  the  theories;  that  is  empirical  constructions  are 
called  in,  in  geometry,  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  us  to 
deduce  particular  laws  from  general  axioms,  (in  the  sense  ot 
the  "Zufallige  Ansichten"  of  Herbart  and  the  teleological 
geometry  of  Trendelenburg.)  But  these  constructions  can  be 
said  to  be  a  part  of  the  ground  only  in  the  particular  case 
when  :hey  are  called  in  as  a  means  to  an  end.  What  really 
stands  under  the  law  of  ground  in  the  strict  sense  is  the 
deduction  according  to  logical  principles. 

§  89.   Over  against  the  complete  application  of  Sufficient 
Reason  to  Mathematics,  its  application  to  experience  in  the 
Causal  Axiom  is  such  that  causation  fails  to  fall  together 
with  the  Law  of  Ground.     This  failure  arises  from  the  fact 
that  in  the  particular  empirical  causal  relation  "der  Hinweis 
auf  das  begriindende  Denken  nicht  dargethan  ist"— for  the 
particular  causal    relations   must  be  found    empirically  for 
themselves.     The   element  of    the  logical    Law   of   Ground 
which  is  to  be   found  in  causation  lies  in  the   postulate  that 
for  every  real  a  sufficient  cause  must  be  found.     This  ration- 
alistic side  of  causation  alone  is  related  to  the  Law  of  Ground. 
The  arguments  of  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  both  fail  to  show 
causation  to  be  an  ^ /n^r^' principle  as  source  of  the   par- 
ticular causal  judgments.^      The  complete  identification  of 
causality  with  Sufficient  Reason  would  only  then  be  allow- 
able   "wenn    die    Ursachen   als    Pramissen  benutzt  werden 
konnten  aus  denen  ohne  Rucksicht  auf  bestatigenden  Beobac- 
tungen  die  Wirkungen  zu  erschliessen  waren."^     Causality, 
then,  has  a  dual  nature— "  Darum  tragt  das  Causal  Gesetz 
den  doppelten  character  eines  Gesetzes  und  eines  Postulates 
an  sich.  Als  das  Letzte  ist  causalitat  Satz  vom  Grunde."'   To 
this  extent  then  can  the  logical  law  of  ground  be  said  to 
penetrate  phenomenal  experience— in  so  far  that  in  conse- 
quence of  its  postulate,  phenomena  must  be  looked  upon  as 

^  Cf.  Sigwart.  par.  83.  'P-  610.  *  Cf.  par.  80  (above). 


80 

under  definite  laws.      ''Die  unverbruchliche   Gesetzmiissiff- 
keit  die  das  wissenschaftiiche  Causal  Gesetz  einschliest,  ist 
eine  notwendige  Folge  jencr  Beziehung  ziim  Satz  des  Grundes 
die  ihm  innevvohnt."'     This  imperfect  relation  of  the  Causal 
Law  to  the  Law  of  Ground,  manifests  itself  according  to  the 
material  to  which    causality   is  applied.       For  we  saw    that 
Sul^cient  Reason  in  general  depended  upon  the  Intuition  for 
its  application,  so  here  in  its  application  as  causality  it  depends 
upon  the  nature  of  the  intuition  for  the  character  and  extent 
of  its  application,     a.    **  In  seiner  anwendung  auf  die  Erfah- 
rung    richtet    sich    dieser    Grundsatz    nach  den  besonderen 
Bedingungen  welche  die  Erscheinungen  unserem,  nach  Grund 
und  Folge  verklinftenden   Denken  entgegen  bringen."     Fur- 
ther:— b.    ''  Es  entspringen  so  aus  ihm  die  einzelncn   Erfah- 
rungs  Gesetze  die  sich  sammtlich  wicder  auf  zwei  allgemeine 
Principien  zuruckfiihren   lasscn,  auf  das  Causal  Gesetz  und 
das  Zweck   Princip."^     Now^   the  application  of  the  Causal 
Axiom,  with  its  twofold  nature,  partly  the  Law  of  Ground, 
partly  that  w^hich  will  not  be  contained  in  this  primal  law  of 
logic,  results  in  antinomies  which  show  the  extent  to  which 
the  Law  of  Ground  may  force  itself  into  phenomena.      These 
antinomies  are  two  in  number,  different  according  as  causa- 
tion is  applied  to  the  objective  world  or  to  the  psychological 
sphere. 

§90.  I.  The  antinomy  of  mechanical  causation  in  Natural 
Science. — This  antithesis  arises  between  logical  causation,  or 
causation  as  the  Law  of  Ground  and  phenomenal  causal 
criteria,  from  the  empirical  side.  The  kernel  of  the  causal 
thought  is  the  idea  of  determination  or  more  metaphysically 
—of  efficiency.'  But  for  this  efficiency  to  be  conceivable 
naive  thought,  and  ultimately  rationalistic  reflection,  trans- 
lates the  logical  necessity  over  into  the  sphere  of  reality  by 
demanding  that  the  cause  and  the  effect  be  in  immediate  con- 
tact, '*so  that  the  force  of  the  cause  may  pass  over  into  the 
effect."  Thus,  temporally  speaking,  the  postulate  demands 
that  cause  and  effect  be  simultaneous.     This  is  the  nearest 

>Cf.  Lotze's  distinction,  |  80  (above).     «  Vol.  I,  p.  574.     »Cf.  Lotze,  I  80  (above.) 


^ 


4 


81 


approach  to  an  expression  of  this  logical  element  in  causation. 
On  the  other  hand  the  study  of  phenomena  shows  us  that 
invariably  the  cause  and  effect  appear  only  as  successive. 
Thus  in  an  early  edition  of  his  Logik*  we  find  the  antinomy 
formulated  as  follow^s: 


Thesis : 
(Rational) 
Ursache  und  Wirkung  sind 


Antithesis: 
(Empirical) 
Die  Ursache  geht  der  Wirk- 


zugleich. 


ung  voran. 


equally 
Mit  dem  x\ufhoren  der  Ur- 
sache erlischt  die  Wirkung. 


also 
Nach  dem  Aufhoren  der  Ur- 
sache verharrt  die  Wirkung. 


This  antinomy  shows  how  far  the  Law  of  Ground  pene- 
trates reality  as  the  causal  axiom.  In  its  pure  logical  form 
it  cannot  enter  but  is  met  by  a  refusal  on  the  part  of 
phenomena  to  conform  to  its  demands.  In  the  modified  form 
of  a  partly  empirical  law  it  can  attain  '<  sufficiency  " — that  is 
sufficient  causes  may  be  found,  but  the  absolute  determin- 
ation of  the  logical  postulate,  reality  resists.  Such  a  deter- 
mination is  only  possible  on  the  basis  of  a  metaphysical  theory 
of  the  phenomenal  causal  relations  being  transparent  con- 
cepts for  the  application  of  the  logical  Principle  of  Ground 
— the  postulate  of  a  logic  of  the  Universe.  So  long  as  we 
abstain  from  a  metaphysic,  these  antinomies  do  not  trouble 
us. 

§91.  But  still  more  complicated  becomes  the  antinomy 
when  the  Law  of  Ground  is  applied  to  the  sphere  of  psycho- 
logical phenomena.  Here  it  is  the  antithesis  between  caus- 
ality **als  Erzeugniss  unseres  Denkens  und  unser  Denken  als 
Erzeugniss  der  natur."  Here  we  have  turned  the  Law  of 
Ground  upon  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  and  as  upon 
any  other  phenomena,  here  also  it  makes  the  demand  that 
the  relation  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  of  the  ideas 
which  make  it  up  be  logically  necessary.  Now  if  we  look  at 
the  ideal  content  of  consciousness,  from  one  side,  it  will  be 

^Logik,  i88o-'83,  p.  536. 


82 


seen  that  from   the  standpoint  of   the  theory  of  knowledge 
these    ideas    in    their    relations,   concept    to    concept,    stand 
under  this  general  logical  law  of  Sufficient   Reason  or  of  the 
dependence  of  concepts  upon  each  other,  for  it  was  in  this 
sphere  that  we  saw  the  law   in   its  original  form  expressed. 
Here  it  will  be  seen,  we  have  gone  out  from  the  results  of 
the  activity  of  consciousness.      But  if  on    the  contrary  we 
look  upon   psychological   life,  in   its  entirety  aside  from   its 
value  for  knowledge,  the  application  of  the  Law  of  Ground 
must  be  two-fold,  of  the  nature  of  an  antinomy  as  in  the  case 
of  the  application  to  external   reality.     For  on  the  one  hand 
the  mere  association   of  ideas,  by  reason   of  its   connection 
with  the  external  world,  is  subject  to  mechanical  causation; 
to  will  acts  however  must  be  assigned  an  inner  causality,  for 
they  are  governed  by  the  teleological  principles  of   purpose 
and  worth.      How  then  does  the  general  logical  principle  of 
Sufficient  Reason  relate  to  these  two  different  sides  of  the 
content  of  consciousness?     Of  course,  in  so  far  as  the  assoc- 
iation of  ideas  is  governed  by  mechanical  laws,  the  Law  of 
Ground  is  applied  according  to  the  principle  expressed  in 
the   preceding  paragraph,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  relation 
between  the  logical  Law  of  Ground  and  the  inner  teleolog- 
ical causality  is  of  another  sort.     For  this   problem   Wundt 
has   a   simple,  and    yet   far    reaching   answer.     The    primal 
Law  of  Ground  and  the  inner  causality  are  identified.      In 
other  words  the  inner  causality  as  represented  in  the  higher 
apperceptive  processes  of  judgment  and  will  is  an  immediate 
manifestation    of    the    primal    Law   of    Ground.      "  FUr    die 
Wirkung  innerer  Kraft  giebt  nicht  eine  gewaltige  Umform- 
ung    der   natur-causalitiit,    wie    in    Psycho-physik,    sondern 
hier  graft  die  logische  Cansalitdt  in  Hirer  ursprungliehen  Gestalt 
Flats,  der  Satz  vom  Griinde  selhst'''^ 

With  this  striking  cutting  of  the  Gordian-Knot,  two  of 
the  most  difficult  problems  of  the  whole  history  of  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Sufficient  Reason  seem  to  be  solved,  a.  The  first 
problem  of  the  relation  of  the  logical  Law  of  Ground  to  the 

^  Logik,  Vol.  I,  p.  627. 


*»» 


83 

causality  of  the  will,  which  was  variously  solved,  either  by 
making  the  latter  independent  of  the  logical  laws  as  in 
Crusius,  or  identifying  it  with  mechanical  causation  as  in 
Schopenhauer,  is  now  solved  by  so  extending  the  logical 
Law  of  Ground  as  to  include  the  logical  causality  of  con- 
sciousness which  worksunder  the  laws  of  *' ends  and  worths.*** 
b.  The  second,  more  especially  epistemological,  problem 
concerns  the  relation  of  this  primal  logical  law  and  its  neces- 
sity to  the  *'  sufficiency  "  of  the  psychological  processes  w^hich 
produce  the  logical  results.  Here  again  the  concept  of  logi- 
cal causality  is  extended  to  include  all  these  psychological 
processes  out  of  which  the  logical  ''resultants"  arise.  Here 
again  "der  Satz  vom  Grunde  greift  in  ihrer  urspriinglichen 
Gestalt  Platz."  Logical  necessity  lies  alone  in  the  ''Resul- 
tanten  "  of  these  apperceptive  processes,^  but  in  that  these 
results  act  as  the  immanental  ends  of  the  processes  that 
precede  them,  is  the  whole  movement  under  logical  causal- 
ity, or  in  other  words  the  whole  apperceptive  side  of  con- 
sciousness is  under  the  Law  of  Ground.  The  relations  of 
cause  and  effect  between  ''resultant"  and  the  process  which 
has  brought  it  about,  are  decided  not  by  equivalence  of  forces 
as  in  mechanical  causation,  but  by  equivalence  of  values' 
between  the  process  which  is  considered  ground  and  the 
judgment  which  results. 

§92.  This  doctrine  of  Logical  Causality  as  governing  the 
whole  apperceptive  side  of  consciousness,  brings  the  element 
of  teleology  in  the  Law  of  Ground,  again  strikingly  to  the 
front.  The  Law  of  Ground  as  applied  to  consciousness  and  its 
cofttent  (except  in  so  far  as  that  content  is  under  association 
laws)  must  be  applied  as  a  teleological  principle,  for  the 
Sufficient  Reason  that  in  applying  the  Law  of  Ground  to 
conscious  content  we  go  backward  from  the  "resultants"  to 
the   sources,  and    these  "resultants"  are  judged  alone   by 

»'*Zweckeuncl  Werthe." 

^Logik,  Vol.  I,  p.  81.     Cf.   also  the  Psychological  Law  of  "  Resultanten"— 
*'  Grimdriss  der  Psychologic''  (1896),  §  23. 
^  Logik,  Vol.  I,  p.  612.     Note. 


84 

their  purpose  or  value  for  consciousness,  exactly  the  opposite 
of  the  application  to  mechanical  causation.  **Zweck  und 
Causalitiit  sprincren  aus  verschiedencn  Betrachtuno^sweisen 
derselben  Voro;Uni;-e  " — und  "  seit  die  Causalitiit  von  dem 
Grunde  zu  Folate  fortschreitet,  der  zweck  aber  von  der 
Folge  zum  Grunde  zuriick,  so  sind  beide  die  einzeln  mogliche 
Gestaltungen  des  Satzes  vom  Grunde."'  The  important 
point  however  is,  that,  although  not  shut  out  from  the  sphere 
of  causal  observation  of  nature,  teleology  vet  finds  the  chief 
application  as  a  princii>le  of  grounding  in  the  sj)here  of  con- 
scious processes,  either  judgments  or  will  acts.  One  need 
only  compare  this  treatment  of  the  teleological  element  with 
that  of  Leibnitz  to  see  the  full  meaning  of  the  development. 
With  Leibnitz  teleology  is  identified  with  causation,  as  the 
Law  of  Ground  ruling  outside  of  logic;  here  it  is  the  Law  of 
Ground  ruling  as  logical  causality  in  our  conscious  apper- 
ceptive processes. 

§93.  To  the  final  metaphysical  (piestion  whether  there  is 
anv  common  term  for  the  solution  of  this  antinomy  between 
the  two  sides  of  the  Law  of  Ground,  the  mechanical  causa- 
tion and  logical  causality  as  they  stand  over  against  each 
other  in  the  sphere  of  conscious  processes,  Wundt  answers 
with  the  hypothesis  of  a  transcendental  thinking  Will,  mani- 
fested in  this  logical  causality  or  apperception,"  but  as  far  as 
the  empirical  problem  is  concerned  there  remains  a  perma- 
nent antinomy  of  attitude,  for  to  give  one  or  the  other  a 
ruling  place,  is  to  attempt  the  solution  of  a  metaphysical 
problem  with  empirical  means. ^ 

^  Logik,  Vol.  I,  p.  612.     Note.      ^Logik,  \'ol.  I.  p.  630.     ^Logik,  Vol.  I,  p.  628. 


85 


i 


*  « 


#     r 


CONCLUSION. 

§99.  This  resume  of  Wundt's  doctrine  of  Sufficient 
Reason  shows  the  main  weight  to  lie  upon  its  definition  as 
the  basal  principle  of  logic;  and  then,  secondly,  in  the 
critical  determination  of  the  extent  and  nature  of  its  applica- 
cation  to  phenomena — i)  to  external  phenomena  in  the  causal 
axiom,  and  2)  to  the  actuality  of  the  processes  of  conscious- 
ness ;  in  other  words,  to  the  metaphysical  and  psychological 
problems.  Here  then  is  a  concise  and  critical  determination 
of  the  mutual  relation  of  the  three  elements  most  prominent 
in  the  history  of  the  law\  These  critical  results  must  be 
compared  with  the  points  of  view  attained  at  the  different 
stages  of  the  development  of  the  principle,  if  the  importance 
of  its  outcome  for  modern  thought  is  to  be  appreciated. 
Such  a  comparison,  in  brief,  the  introductory  chapter 
aimed  to  facilitate.  And  the  succeeding  detailed  treatment 
of  the  struggle  between  the  metaphysical  and  logical  motives, 
out  of  which  the  first  formulation  of  Sufficient  Reason 
arose,  and  of  the  final  victory  of  the  logical  standpoint  has,  it 
is  to  be  hoped,  only  served  to  impress  upon  the  reader  the 
inherent  necessitv  of  the  movement. 

The  concomitant  development  of  what  has  been  called 
the  modern  logical  consciousness  and  the  corresponding  dis- 
integration, or  at  least  loss  of  importance  of  the  metaphysi- 
cal motive,  it  has  been  constantly  maintained,  lies  deeply 
rooted  in  the  necessity  of  this  movement.  Only,  in  such 
light,  is  it  possible  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  develop- 
ment of  this  fundamental  postulate  from  an  extra-logical  to 
a  fundamentally  logical  formulation,  according  to  which  it  is 
first  of  all  a  logical  postulate,  with  only  secondary  applica- 
tions to  the  metaphysical  real.  This  logical  consciousness 
knows  no  higher  law  than  the  postulate  that  empirical 
knowledge  is  alone  possible  by  means  of  conceptual  logical 
relations,  although  the  bonds  of  the  logical  consciousness 
have  been  extended. 


» 


* 


86 

The  satisfaction  of  the  desire  for  unification  can  g^^  no 
further  than  the  postulate  that  all  phenomena  which  come  to 
our   knowledge   must   be   under  the  universal  principles   of 
logic  in  order  to  be  known.     Whether  these  principles  ex- 
haust the  nature  of  the  reality  of  these  phenomena  is  another 
question.     Thus  Dilthey,  in  closing  the  first  volume  of  the 
Einleitung  in   die   Geistes  Wisscnschaften,  which   is   concerned 
with  the  history  of  the  disintegration  of  metaphysics  and  the 
rise  of  the  modern  mental  sciences,  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  by  looking  backward,  we  may  see  that  the  attempt  at  a 
unitary   metaphysical  formulation  of  Sufficient   Reason   has 
been  the  problem  of  the  whole  modern   metaphysical   move- 
ment.    The  failure  to  accomplish  it  has  been  the  failure  of 
metaphysics  in  general.^     This,  then,  is  the  meaning  of  the 
giving  up  of  a  metaphysical  for  a  merely  logical  theory  of 
Sufficient  Reason.     Only  so  far  as   the  ground   is  logically 
conceived  is  it  necessary.     As  material  principle  it  can  only 
be  ''sufficient"  not  metaphysically  determining,  as  Crusius 
and  Kant  would   have.      The  only  possible   way  of  grasping 
reality,  then,  is  by  seeking  relations  of  logical  thought  neces- 
sity  in   the    relativity   of   experience.      Into    this    relativity 
Science,  whose  ideal  is  a  contradictionless  whole  of  experi- 
ence, brings  logical   method,  constitutes  an  objective  sphere 
of  space,  time  and  causality.     The  mathematics  of  space  and 
time;   the  various  sciences,   mental  and  physical,  with  their 
various   causalities,    reducible,    however,    to    physical    and 
psychical,    constitute    the    limits    of    the    function    of    the 
postulate  of  Sufficient  Reason  as  applied  to  phenomenal  real- 
ity.    But    the    element    of   necessity,   common  to  all   these 
forms,  is  just  the  logical  postulate  which  forms  the  skeleton 
of  thought.     Those  elements,  which  are  peculiar  to  the  par- 
ticular applications   of   the   postulate   to   definite    particular 
material,  are  only  of  the  nature  of  subjective  sufficiency,  and 
not  determining  necessity.     This  is  evidently  the  opposite, 
in    every    particular,    of    Schopenhauer's    position,     which 

*  Dilthey,  ''Einleitung  in  die  Geistes  Wissensc ha/ten,^'  p.  407-519. 


x'^ 


!•  V 


87 

ascribes  to  them,   not  to  the  logical  kernel,  the  source  of 
necessity. 

With  the  limits  of  the  validity  of  this  logical  postulate  in 
trans-phenomenal  usage,  this  paper  has,  of  course,  nothing  to 
do.  There  may  be  a  logic  of  reality,  which  is  independent 
of  the  laws  of  empirical  knowledge,  but  in  so  far  as  the  Law 
oi  Ground  is  concerned  with  phenomena,  we  are  constrained 
to  say,  from  the  results  of  the  foregoing  study,  that  the  ex- 
tension of  the  postulate  is  limited,  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
material  to  which  it  is  applied,  to  the  surface  of  things.  The 
postulate  of  a  contradictionless  whole  of  experience,  which 
since  Herbart  has  been  a  characteristic  definition  of  Suf- 
ficient Reason,  cannot  be  pressed  so  far  as  to  lead  us  to  seek 
the  real  beyond  experience,  but  can  only  be  extended  as  far 
as  the  logical  element  in  the  experiential  laws  demands. 

The  impulse  to  metaphysical  unification,  often  falsely 
identified  with  the  technical  Law  of  Ground,  though  it 
demands  rightly  a  fundamental  place  in  thought  must  in  so 
far  be  subordinated  to  the  critically  determined  limits  of  the 
material  applications  of  Sufficient  Reason,  that  in  the 
interests  of  unity,  distinctions  so  vital,  as  for  instance  that 
between  physical  and  psychical  causality,  are  not  obscured. 
This  critical  standpoint  reflection  has  attained  by  a  long 
process  of  struggle,  which  it  has  been  the  aim  of  the  preced- 
ing pages  to  portray ;  and  such  a  standpoint  is  not  likely  to 
be  lost.  It  has  been  a  struggle  simply  because,  in  attaining 
a  standpoint  from  which  the  bold  logical  nature  of  this  pos- 
tulate is  clearly  seen,  of  necessity,  the  more  subjective  postu- 
lates, ethical  and  religious,  as  well  as  the  metaphysical 
demand  for  unitv,  have  been  forced  one  b^^  one  to  fall  away. 
Historically,  even  until  Leibnitz's  time,  through  the  Greeks, 
Augustine,  Descartes  and  Spinoza,  Sufficient  Reason  had 
religious  or  ethical  coloring,  as  well  as  metaphysical.  The 
Leibnitzians,  the  Kantians,  and  even  the  Herbartians,  failed  to 
separate  it  entirely  from  metaphysical  demands,  and  to  give 
it  a  purely  logical  self-sufficiency.  This  the  modern  logical 
consciousness,  which  is  only  another  aspect  of  what  is  called 


88 

the  modern  scientific  consciousness,  has  partially  attained. 
A  certain  formalism  and  abstraction  cannot  be  denied  to  the 
process,  and  the  religious,  ontological  postulates  remain  just 
as  strong  though  separated  by  the  development  of  our 
thought  from  the  logical  Law  of  Ground.  Perhaps  all  these 
worth  categories  might  be  found  to  have  a  '^sufficiency" 
of  their  own,  and  the  abstraction  by  means  of  which  vye  come 
to  a  critical  understanding  of  the  logical  Law  of  Ground, 
may  only  serve  to  bring  the  antithesis  more  plainly  to  our 
consciousness.  At  all  events  the  critical  results  cannot  be 
undone. 


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VITA. 

The  writer  of  this  dissertation,  Wilbur  Marshall  Urban, 
was  born  March  27,  1873,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  the  first  son  of  the  Reverend  Abram 
Urban,  a  clergyman  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
and  was  baptized  and  confirmed  in  the  same  confession. 
Ilavinir  received  the  elements  of  education  in  the  public 
schools  of  his  native  city,  and  being  prepared  for  the  univer- 
sity in  the  William  Penn  Charter  School  of  Philadelphia,  he 
was  admitted  to  Princeton  University  in  the  fall  of  1891. 
After  two  years  of  study  of  the  Humanities,  and  two  years 
entirely  devoted  to  Philosophy,  he  was  graduated  in  1895 
with  the  Baccalaureate  degree  and  was  appointed  James 
McCosh  Fellow  in  Mental  Science.  Immediately  upon  grad- 
uation, the  author  visited  Germany,  spending  the  first  two 
semesters  in  Jena,  where  he  availed  himself  of  the  opportu- 
nity to  hear  the  lectures  of  Professors  Euchen,  Liebmann, 
Ziehen  and  Dr.  Erhardt.  The  winter  semester  of  1897  was 
spent  in  Leipzig  under  the  teaching  of  Professors  Ileinze, 
Wundt,  Volkelt  and  Schmarsow,  after  which  the  examination 
for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  was  successfully 
passed.  The  author  desires  to  exj)ress  to  his  honored  teach- 
ers his  deep  appreciation  of  their  helpful  interest. 


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